


mr houdini you're a freakshow

by themikeymonster



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Blame Karen Page, Featuring Karen and Matt and Foggy being bros, Fluff and Crack, Got Drunk-Married in Vegas, M/M, Matt takes a while to get with the program, Temporarily Platonic Marriage, This Fic is Mostly Harmless, Very Light Pining Angst, pointless domestic fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-25 07:56:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4952515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themikeymonster/pseuds/themikeymonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Shut up," Foggy says, embarrassed for himself and also Foggy-in-the-video, holy shit. Oh, and there goes a return kiss. On the cheek, thank God, so that's something - that means Foggy can still control himself a little bit no matter how falling down drunk he is. Stupid enough to get married to his best friend, not stupid enough to actually try making out with said best friend. That. That's way too wet for a kiss on the cheek, for all that Matt-in-the-video is cackling with apparent glee.</i><br/>--</p><p>You can't plea bargain out of marriage, Foggy. Consider yourself guilty as charged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mr houdini you're a freakshow

**Author's Note:**

> it was only a matter of time before i wrote vegas marriage cliche. Definitely inspired by [this post](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1296.html?thread=2120720#cmt2120720) in the kinkmeme. It has a couple of cute if incomplete fills, so check that shit out.
> 
> "Mr. Houdini, you're a freakshow" is a line from Melanie Martinez' song "[Carousel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAB5AC9yhY0)", in reference to "getting a '[shot at the brass ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_ring)'" - ie: aiming for the highest prize.
> 
>  **Warnings** : terms like 'whackjob' and 'idiot' are used frequently but without malicious intention, assholes in love who can't communicate worth shit, Foggy's imperfect family which has some assholes but most of which are loving, agender!matt who doesn't know that's a word, pansexual!Foggy who panders to the homo/hetero binary, Foggy's constant internal swearing, and two of the least classy weddings ever.

* * *

 

 

Foggy blames Karen.

 

Only, no, that implies that something worthy of blame has happened, and he - he's not. Really. Sure? He's not sure if he wants to say that anyone is to blame for this. But giving Karen credit for this implies that it's a good thing, and he's not. Entirely sure that's what it is, either.

 

So. You see.

 

Las Vegas.

 

They went there.

 

Oh yeah, they definitely went there.

 

\--

 

So Foggy and Matt both wake up hungover. No, Karen, Foggy, and Matt all three wake up hungover. Foggy and Matt wake up married. Matt, blind as he is, still figures it out first. Foggy hears "What" and "No" said in the mildest voice Matt can manage.

 

They are all three of them sharing the same bed. Foggy is hiding his face in Karen's hair; he thinks he might have woken up earlier because someone kicked him in the gut. He thinks it was Matt, and he's pretty sure he solved the problem by trapping Matt's legs with his own.

 

Because at the time? Too hungover to care that he was sharing sleeping space with two other people. Foggy has woken up hungover and sharing a bed with seven people before. This is nothing. They're all even wearing clothes, so. No big deal. They're clearly all hungover, and back in school, he and Matt would sometimes co-sleep after a night out because Matt gets so disoriented by being drunk and suffers the worst hangovers, so it all makes perfect sense.

 

In retrospect, Foggy thinks Matt was being an asshole and using his stomach gurgles or something to block out the results of a hangover on his super senses. "Asshole," he says.

 

"Um," Matt says.

 

Foggy decides that he's going to ignore Matt, because he is that hungover, and Karen's hair smells good, and also she's groaning a bit in a manner that implies that she's going to start putting her elbows in uncomfortable places if they don't shut up.

 

"Um," Matt says again. "Who -" He twitches and flops around a bit, and both Foggy and Karen groan in protest to the way the bed jars until he stops. He says, "Whose - whose spouse did I become?"

 

There's a lovely few moments where Foggy doesn't register the question, and then: "what."

 

"Yes," Matt says. "I know. Um. I. Got married? Last night? Is this a wedding ring? It feels like a wedding ring."

 

"You can't tell?" Karen asks skeptically, not twitching a muscle to deal with Matt's latest disaster. Granted, this is probably not fatal, so -

 

"When I'm not hungover," Matt says grumpily.

 

Foggy moans one last time in protest before he pulls away from Karen and twists around. Matt's rumpled up, but drunk-rumpled, not sex-rumpled. Foggy hates that he knows the difference. He fumbles around for Matt's hand, and -

 

"Oh," Foggy says. He blinks at his hand in surprise.

 

"Oh?" Matt asks.

 

"Huh," Foggy replies.

 

Karen moans and flails behind her a bit and manages to hit Foggy's arm with her fingers a bit. It's kind of a lazy swing, barely worth paying attention to.

 

"Uh," Foggy adds. "I. Also became a spouse last night? Husband. If actual legal documents got filed, I appear to have also gotten married. So. I'm a husband now, I guess?"

 

"Huh," Matt says faintly.

 

Karen twitches, then squirms upright. She looks rather like the creature from the dark lagoon rising from seaweed or something, if seaweed was blond and smelled like chamomile and sunshine. "Let's - let's not jump to conclusions," she says, pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead and squinting blearily at them. Foggy realizes he's still holding Matt's be-ringed hand in his own, and almost lets go before deciding that it's not worth it. He's secure enough in his masculinity to hold his best friend's hand.

 

Matt is not, however, and withdraws it to rake it back through his hair. "Right," he says, and licks his lips.

 

Foggy is slightly offended. Matt's showing all his usual distress signs, apparently at the thought of being married to Foggy, which is - just. Rude. "Don't worry about it, buddy," he says. "I'm sure we can get an annulment, no problem."

 

"Yeah," Matt says, not looking reassured in the least.

 

\--

 

So the part where it becomes clearly Karen's fault is discovered a bit later in the day, when everyone has hydrated a bit and taken some medication - or meditated, as the case may be - and they discover an actual license, and yes. Apparently. Matt is now Foggy's spouse. That's.

 

Hmm.

 

But the damning evidence comes from Karen's phone itself. Because she apparently actually took their wedding video. She brings it to their attention, and she holds it so Foggy can watch it with her, and Matt stands some distance away with his hands on his hips - a dead give away about just how upset he is at the moment, using something halfway between 'lawyer' and 'Daredevil'.

 

"Oh, man, Karen was really wasted," Foggy tells Matt, watching the dim video. Her eyes are glassy and she's almost beet-red with the sloppiest grin on her face he's ever seen. She somehow manages to look radiant, of course.

 

Karen-in-the-video says something slurred and bright and giggly before swallowing it down. "These," she says, turning the phone around clumsily, "are my best - bestest friends - most best friends in the world. Fo -Foggy. Is it bestest or most best?"

 

Foggy-in-the-video is utterly smashed as well, his eyes squinted almost shut and the stupidest look on his face. "Oh man," Foggy says, "I am wasted. I am more wasted than Karen. Worst wedding video ever - oh, holy shit, Matt, you're wasted, too!" Matt would have had to have been, but it's different seeing it. He gets why Matt doesn't drink, now, but - well. Once or twice, Matt had gotten so wasted he couldn't stand up, and this was definitely one of these times.

 

"Buddy," Foggy says, "You are literally too wasted to stand. Oh my God. Karen, look at that. That's Matt Murdock's stupid wounded duck face, the one he doesn't do anymore?"

 

"Oh?" Karen asks, and she tilts her phone so she can see it better. Foggy steps so that he can peer over her shoulder and point.

 

"Yeah, you missed out. Oh! Look. That dorky grin? That is my actual favorite, look at what an idiot he is. He is so wasted." Matt-in-the-video has basically slung himself over Foggy's shoulder, and he's doing that ear-to-ear grin that happens only too rarely. He's not even wearing his glasses - they actually haven't found his glasses yet, that might be bad. Foggy's not sure they can afford a new pair.

 

"Oh, but we are clearly already at a chapel," he adds, squinting at the background. "Oh. This is. This is not tasteful at all. My mom's gonna kill me. She was really set on the whole traditional church wedding. Jesus."

 

"It's 'most bestest'," Foggy-in-the-video tells Karen-in-the-video, and Matt-in-the-video laughs like the idiot he is, and says, soppy, "you're my 'most bestest'" and holy shit, that was a kiss. On Foggy's cheek, maybe, but. Still. And he has no memory of this. What the fuck.

 

Foggy-in-the-video seems to be trying to out-sop Matt-in-the-video, if that's possible. "Buddy," he says delightedly, "Buddy. Buddy, you're my - my - you're my Matty-buddy. 's like a most-bestest, but - better. Cos it's you."

 

"Aw," Karen coos.

 

"Shut up," Foggy says, embarrassed for himself and also Foggy-in-the-video, holy shit. Oh, and there goes a return kiss. On the cheek, thank God, so that's something - that means Foggy can still control himself a little bit no matter how falling down drunk he is. Stupid enough to get married to his best friend, not stupid enough to actually try making out with said best friend. That. That's way too wet for a kiss on the cheek, for all that Matt-in-the-video is cackling with apparent glee. This is -

 

"What," Matt demands, and Foggy wonders what the fuck he heard and what he thought it meant.

 

"Uh," Foggy says, and draws a blank for possibly the first time in his life. He's not proud to say that he's usually a fairly good liar, when Matt Lie-Detector Murdock isn't on the case. Also maybe because he hates lying to his friends, even when they start it.

 

"You are - really, such good friends," Karen says, lying blatantly to the man who can smell lies or whatever it is he does. (Okay, Foggy knows exactly what he does, but he prefers to pretend he doesn't.)

 

Meanwhile, on the video, Foggy and Matt are standing there wobbling in front of the ordained minister, who is at least not Elvis, and - okay, Foggy and Matt are only standing up because they're using each other as crutches and there is possibly some Jenga-related physics or quantum mechanics or something. Foggy can't -

 

Foggy's. Really. Kind of confused at the moment. A little bit. There he is - that's him. It's not weird to see himself happy or anything, but - that happy? He hasn't been that happy since college. And this is. Weird. Sure, half of it is probably just how utterly smashed he is, because alcohol doesn't result in the best decisions, even if they seem terrific at the time - see: marrying his best friend - but.

 

And Matt-in-the-video is.

 

And they say 'I do' and. Matt-in-the-video's face is. Kind of. Matt always has a kind of unfocused look to his face, because he's fucking blind and in a sighted world, that's obvious, but. It's just his eyes, Foggy thinks for the first time - the eyes are unfocused. Matt-in-the-video is clearly paying every scrap of attention he can to Foggy-in-the-video, and Foggy-in-the-video, he's looking at Matt-in-the-video is his whole entire world, and - that's.

 

Holy shit, does he always look at Matt that way? He risks a glance toward Karen, and she catches his eye, and seems to read his mind, because her face says 'well - yeah'.

 

Oh. Well. That's just terrific. In their wedding video, Matt's pressing a second kiss to Foggy's cheek and Foggy's returning the favor and oh, good, at least while black-out drunk Foggy did not make out with his best friend who he apparently looks at like he raises and lowers the sun and personally placed all the stars into the sky.

 

"Welp," he says aloud, even though Matt hasn't prompted him for further description of the video. "Yeah. That was us. We definitely got married and everything. So. Who is looking forward to an annulment? Because I for one -"

 

"We can't," Matt says.

 

Foggy looks at him. Matt's frowning and his jaw is set and this is Matt's 'I've made a decision and you have to deal with it' face. "Excuse me," he says, and oh boy, that's his 'the fuck you say, Murdock?' voice.

 

"Boys," Karen says, obviously appalled. "You can't have your first married fight yet, you haven't even had your honeymoon!"

 

"Karen," Matt says reproachfully.

 

"No," Foggy says, resigned. "She's right. Why - why can't we get an annulment? Matthew Michael Murdock?"

 

Matt goes a bit pale, as he should when Foggy starts using three names for him, but he also sticks his chin in the air. "That's not how marriage works," he says.

 

"Ah," Foggy says. "I'm pretty sure we didn't get Catholic-married."

 

Matt lets loose one of his little sharp, strained giggles to match the tight, strained grin on his face. "I am pretty sure marriage in front of the Lord is marriage, Foggy."

 

Foggy stares at him, then turns to Karen. "Well, okay," he says, "apparently God honors vows made in front of Elvis impersonators -"

 

"Foggy," she hisses, before looking earnestly at Matt. "It was someone dressed as an actual priest, I promise, even - black-out drunk, I wouldn't let you guys get married by an Elvis impersonator."

 

Foggy sighs loudly, because what the fuck, this is all a disaster.

 

"Look," Matt says after a moment, unbending a little bit - wow, that's a Christmas Miracle! "We can discuss a legal divorce," he says, "but other than that-?" He shrugs and drops his hands so they slap against his thighs loudly. There's definitely an air of finality there.

 

So that was how Foggy ended up married to his best friend. Yeah.

 

\--

 

They never actually have that conversation about that legal divorce. Matt never brings it up, and Foggy. Can't?

 

Or he could, but. It. The thing is. Matt is.

 

Matt wears the ring, is the thing. After they were mostly sober, waiting in the line to board the plane, Foggy had noticed Matt touching it with his thumb, scrapping his nail against it and twisting it around his finger. Matt's head had cocked, and then he'd said, "It's not gold. Cheap brass alloy. Of course, we aren't exactly loaded. It was probably our best attempt on short notice."

 

It's brass and it looks kind of cheap, but Matt wears the ring, and Foggy - does? Too?

 

For like an entire day when they got back to Manhattan, Foggy doesn't. He's pretty sure that Matt knows somehow, but Matt says nothing and wears his ring and -

 

Seeing the ring on Matt's fingers, curled over his refreshable display. Was.

 

Seeing that made something heavy park itself inside his chest. Not on it, not like it was hard to breathe, but there was a weight there. Something that made him feel like the air was thin and his heart beat harder - like playing the clarinet, not like being forced to try to run a quarter of a mile.

 

Before lunch that day, Foggy had taken the ring out of his pocket and slipped it on. Karen had pretend not to notice, and Matt - still didn't say anything.

 

Which whatever. It's not like he expected Matt to? Really? Matt's an odd conglomeration of pretending he doesn't know what Foggy had for dinner last night no matter how hard Foggy brushes his teeth and casually rolling out that if Foggy has one more donut he's gonna have a sugar crash to look forward to later.

 

Okay, so he's married to his best friend. It was apparently one of the happiest days of his life, even though he doesn't remember it. He has the video, because Karen emailed it to him with something flippant about Matt's dorky smile. So. He knows. He knows what face he was making that day, even as drunk as they were. He and Matt were practically attached to the hip up until Daredevil happened, and they - well. They still don't see eye-to-eye on that, but Foggy can handle being a vigilante's husband. He can handle having Matt as his spouse.

 

Okay. He can do this.

 

\--

 

Being married to Matt is actually pretty easy, really. Nothing actually changes, is the thing.

 

Okay, that's not true. Sometimes their clients and other cute little old ladies want to talk to him about his 'lovely wife' at which point Foggy immediately defaults to avoiding pronouns and calling himself the husband. It's not that he's concerned about what they think of him or ashamed of Matt - he just. Don't know. Exactly what is going on there, other than the fact that they're married as far as the law and apparently God is concerned.

 

But other than that, nothing changes.

 

Okay, so maybe he once while he and Matt where there late at the office brainstorming a case while Karen was out chasing a lead - it's not a dangerous case, or it shouldn't be, and Matt's trying hard not to be a hypocrite now that they can call him on it -

 

Well, so anyway, it's late night and so Foggy decides to top off their cups and brings Matt his. He says, "here, babe," and Matt takes it and then Matt says, "what did you call me?"

 

"What," Foggy says, and thinks back, but he can't recall what exactly he called Matt.

 

Matt seems to realize this, his head cocked. "You called me 'babe,'" he says, only slightly accusing. Mostly he sounds confused.

 

Foggy takes a second to process that and realizes that he might have actually done that. "Oh shit," he says. "I might have?"

 

"M - my hearing's pretty good," Matt points out.

 

"Okay? I'm not saying I didn't," Foggy says defensively. "I'm just saying I don't actually remember doing it. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. Nolo contendere."

 

"That's effectively a guilty plea," Matt points out.

 

"Shut up," he says. "Look, we're married, Matt. Unless 'babe' falls under the list prohibited words, it's probably going to happen again. - is it? On the list?"

 

Matt's mouth twists, and then he concedes: "No."

 

"Alright then," Foggy says. "You're the one that wanted to stay married, Matt. That means I have the privilege of using a whole long list of the most ridiculous and saccharine pet-names."

 

"A - alright," Matt says. "I can't. Argue with that."

 

So other than that, nothing changes. No! Really.

 

\--

 

They've been married for a few months when Foggy looks at his ring and realizes it's not going to last.

 

He kind of hurts himself in that moment and has to take a second to just breathe through it, the way he has had to learn. The ring. He means the ring. It is a cheap ring, and made of brass. Foggy wears it every day and he seriously does not do that much work with his hands and it is dented and scratched and -

 

Well, it just won't do, is the thing.

 

When Foggy goes into the office, he peers over at Matt's ring. It looks to be in better shape than his own, which is - what? Matt goes out punching people every night. Well, not every night, or so Matt claims, but still. Unless he takes it off? So - it - won't? Get damaged on people's faces?

 

Huh.

 

Well, still though. It's cheap and brass and Foggy's looks dinged up and he is really, weirdly uncomfortable with how that might reflect on their marriage. Their fake marriage. No, their real marriage - their real, fully platonic marriage. Between friends.

 

Anyway, the brass ring isn't going to last much longer, is Foggy's point. The point that he's not sure what to do with.

 

"Everything alright?" Matt asks from the doorway to Foggy's office.

 

Foggy doesn't bother answering with words, because if you don't use words, you can't lie, right? Anyway, everything is more or less alright, so it's not really a lie. He's pretty sure his heart is making him sound guilty enough as it is without actually saying words to make it worse.

 

Matt groans, soft and reproachful. "Foggy," he says.

 

"Yeah, yeah," he says, minimizing the window on his laptop. "Everything's fine."

 

Matt makes that face, the one where his jaw goes all sideways and his chin goes up in the air and his teeth press against his lip in a thin mockery of a grin. "You tap your ring against the desk when something's bothering you," he says bluntly.

 

Foggy glances down to his hand, and - huh. So he might be. Well. That. That explains, a bit, why his ring is so battered. "Nolo contendere," he tries.

 

Matt huffs, unamused. "I know we're lawyers, Foggy, but this actually isn't a court of law, you can't just plea your way out every time something comes up."

 

"Ah, well. You see, if you wouldn't put me on trial every time something comes up, I wouldn't plea out," Foggy says. He's a little pissed off, but that's just because his spouse has decided he wants to pick a fight like an asshole. "Matt. Get a clue. Listen to my heart. Okay? Nothing. Is the matter. Other than you standing there in my doorway being an asshole."

 

Matt either considers that or is listening to his heart, one of the two, and his head cocks and turns a bit before he actually steps inside the door. "Alright," he says. "But if something were bothering you - you'd tell me, right?"

 

Ah, shit, that's Matt's little insecurity ploy. Or, okay. It's not a ploy, exactly. It's manipulative as shit though. Matt is never as honest as he is when he's trying to get his way. Either way, he knows Foggy inside and out and can typically play him like a fiddle.

 

"That's a two-way street, buddy," he says, then corrects to "babe" just to see Matt's face, following it with, "what. We're married."

 

"Yeah, I know we're married," Matt says testily.

 

"You'd better," Foggy says. "Look. You can't have all the benefits of marriage without the hard parts, Matt. It's a two-way street. You want me to be honest with you, you gotta be honest with me. You want me to come to you with my problems - well. Don't bring your work home with you, because that would be dangerous. And bloody. And unpleasant. I can deal with unpleasant, but the dangerous and bloody parts still gives me pause, Matt."

 

Matt bends his head a bit, turning that over, then snorts. "Okay," he says, angling in Foggy's direction. "I know you're not happy about this - being married to me. And it's not easy. Being something someone regrets."

 

"Oh," Foggy says, and "Uh" and "Okay" and he gets up to pull Matt out of the doorway so he can shut it. "Matt," he says, turning to his friend, who looks like he's expecting to have a fist-fight about this - which, fair enough. Last time they talked about feelings, Foggy did threaten to kick his ass, and he has not yet made good on that.

 

Normally, Foggy wouldn't be able to lay a hand on Matt, but Foggy suspects that Matt would probably just stand there and take it, because Matt is a Catholic idiot.

 

"Matt," he says again, "Babe. We got drunk-married in Las Vegas! We are an actual cliche. If I was going to marry my best friend, I would have preferred to do it sober, with forethought, and probably some actual debate about the situation over hospital visitation and joint tax filing and all good legal things that come with pledging to spend the rest of my life with someone."

 

His breath catches in his throat for a second, because - well. Married to Matt. Could be worse. Mom always told him to marry his best friend. He's pretty sure she meant for him to marry a girl and give her lots of little grandkids so they could further the Nelson Brood tradition, but.

 

Matt takes a careful breath and says, "Well, you always did want to work things out to the last detail."

 

"Yeah," Foggy says, "Hello? I did carefully plot out what projects I could make what grade on and still graduate with honors. You and me and this? None of that happened, okay, so forgive me if I have little anxiety attacks every now and then. You hear me wearing this ring? Or smell it, or whatever? The married part is not the problem here, Matt. We - if you'll recall, we were actually already a bit married."

 

Matt's face does something complicated before tugging into a wry smile. "For better or for worse," he recalls.

 

"Yeah," Foggy says, stepping away and going back around his desk so he can sit down and not be all up in Matt's face. Not that he has a problem with that, it's just. You know. Talking about feelings and shit. Matt is more allergic to feelings than Foggy, but Foggy dares anyone to try baring their soul to Matt and not get spooked off.

 

"So you don't regret it," Matt presses, because he never knows when to leave well enough alone. Foggy knew that a long time before Matt insisted on pulling his stitches, though.

 

"The how, yes," he says, "The what? No."

 

Matt stands there awkwardly at the door and looks like he doesn't know what to do with himself for a second. "Okay," he says. "Good. Okay. Um. I'm." Matt turns abruptly and leaves, as he tends to do when he feels like he's embarrassing himself.

 

Well. He _should_. He should know better than to doubt Foggy Nelson. And also there. Might be other reasons Matt should be embarrassed for those questions, but. Whatever. Foggy shrugs and pulls the browser window back up.

 

\--

 

So. Things must be going pretty well in Matt World, because he goes out and gets himself a concussion. Yeah. Foggy's noticed a pattern. Actually, the whole Daredevil thing was a bit of an outlier, what with things just continuously spiraling downwards. Usually Life waits for Matt to be having a good time before smacking him down.

 

Anyway, Claire calls him, which is how Foggy finds out about the concussion, because of course. He hears about it from his spouse's almost-lover. She says: "So your husband went and threw himself off a roof again and gave himself a concussion."

 

"Spouse," Foggy corrects automatically, then, "wait what" and "a concussion" and "again?"

 

Well then. Foggy is never going to be pleased when Matt gets hurt, but at least in this instance, it works out well for him. It didn't even go too badly for Matt, who is fine other than the whole head injury thing. He's asleep when Foggy gets there, curled up on the couch. It's like the Night That Shall Not Be Spoken Of all over again. Well. Except for the obvious things. Right. A goose-egg and no stitches is actually fairly good.

 

"Hello, Nurse," Foggy says. Although, naturally not in a lecherous way. Because that would be weird. You know. Considering the degrees by which they are connected. "Second verse, same as the first?"

 

"More or less. It should be a little easier this time, since he's not in danger of dying, of course," Claire says as she gathers her things. She stands and turns to smile at him in a kind of weird manner. "So. Congratulations. If I had known, I would have sent flowers or something when it happened."

 

Oh. Well. This is. Awkward. Um. Foggy scratches at his neck for a moment, avoiding eye contact. "Oh. Well. Me, too. It was kind of a surprise to us all. But thanks, I think? I mean, it has more to do with Karen and Matt than it does me and Matt, but thanks."

 

"Karen and Matt, huh," she says.

 

"Well, we were falling down drunk in Vegas, and it was Karen's idea, and Matt's Catholic. So." He lifts his hand and flashes the brass ring at her.

 

"Uh huh. Well." Claire says. "With friends like that, who needs enemies?" She gives him a wry, slightly mocking look before she leaves.

 

Yeah, he's not fooling anybody. He's not lying in the least, but he knows he could probably guilt Matt into giving him the annulment he asked for when this whole venture began. And he. Just sort of hasn't gotten around to it? No one is going to believe that.

 

Okay, so the thing is. The thing about all this is - Foggy might. Just. Might just a little bit. You know. Love Matt? Like - Obviously, okay. Obviously he loves Matt. Everyone loves Matt, other than assholes and jerks and all of Daredevil's enemies. But.

 

Okay, so: Love. Love is a fluttery bubbly-giddy feeling, right? Foggy gets that feeling sometimes. He gets that a lot. Really easy. Drop of a dime type stuff. He had been fluttery-bubbly about Diljit Multani when he'd managed to grab the last Punjabi spot. He is currently fluttery-bubbly for Karen. He is capable of feeling fluttery-bubbly for a dozen people at a time, is the thing. So. No big deal. Love is fluttery-bubbly.

 

Well, it might turn out that love - love might also be a kind of pounding-boil. Or maybe a roiling-thunder? Because he used to feel all fluttery-bubbly for Matt, for years and years, and it was no big deal, because Foggy has a lot of people he feels like that toward at any given time. Only.

 

Only he found out that Matt - well. The Matt he felt fluttery-bubbly about had. That Matt had disappeared somewhere. Matt killed that Matt. Matt became someone else in secret - twisted and folded and evolved into something new - and lied to Foggy's face about it. And that. After that, the fluttery-bubbly went kind of silent.

 

Only, then it came back? It came back but not the same. Over months spent pulling secrets and admissions from Matt's mouth until Foggy could recognize him again, something brewed in the quiet, still parts of Foggy's heart, and. Roiled. And thundered. And by the time it came creeping out into the light where Foggy could see it, it had already settled in and there was no pulling it out and making it quiet.

 

Foggy kind of wishes that he'd never learned he could feel such things. But hey. Learning all kind of new stuff every day. So.

 

"Hey, babe," he says, crouching down beside the couch. "Don't mind me, just your loving husband doing you a favor. I think." He rolls his eyes at himself and reaches out to tug Matt's hand out of the pathetic curl Matt tends to favor. Matt protests but doesn't actually wake up, his arm unspooling into Foggy's grip. He's wearing his wedding band, which - good. This would be awkward if he wasn't.

 

Matt's ring is in better shape than Foggy's, but. It's still scratched. A little battered. Strangely worn. Like it's an old gold ring. Twenty years, maybe. Which is. Weird. It does weird things to Foggy, is what he means. They haven't even known each other for twenty years.

 

Matt's fingers kind of spasm a bit when Foggy starts twisting the ring off, but all it takes is a shush for nothing to come of it. Maybe Matt's hand should look strange to him - naked - without the ring, because he hasn't seen Matt without it since they woke up this way. But it doesn't. It just looks like Matt's hand. He's seen Matt's hand bare for years and years.

 

It looks strange with the ring, is the thing. Maybe because Foggy's wearing the other one.

 

He'd never exactly thought this far ahead, has he? Foggy had kind of abstractly figured that Matt would find some pretty girl to settle down with. Probably within a few years. Matt has a hard time keeping them, but girls love Matt. One of them was going to catch him for good sooner or later. Or that's what Foggy thought.

 

Yeah. Instead Karen happened. So. Hmm. Now Foggy's here at his concussed spouse's couch-side - why wasn't Matt in his actual bed, huh, Claire? - doing a presto-chango. He's being a giant chicken about this - it's not like Matt won't realize -

 

Well, whatever. There. It's done. Foggy's gotten Matt's brass ring off and slipped the one he'd bought last week in its place. Yeah. Matt's gonna notice that. The brass ring had been round, like the stereotypical marriage band. These? Thinner. Flatter. Huh.

 

Foggy places Matt's arm back on the couch, and then replaces his own, and - okay. Okay. So maybe. Maybe he holds his hand out next to Matt's and. You know. Checks it out.

 

Hey. The replacements were functional. Totally and completely! Foggy is being rational here. At this very moment. Totally rational. It's just. He kind of wants to see. If, you know. They look like actual marriage rings. Considering that the bands are gray and silver and not gold.

 

He probably should have asked Matt before replacing their wedding rings. It's a little bit late now.

 

Matt's hand flexes, and he curls his thumb in. "What metal is that," he asks.

 

Foggy gives himself a second to palm his face, because. Its not like he didn't know. He knew, okay. he knew that Matt tends to be a light sleeper. He also knows it doesn't matter to Matt if he has his eyes open or not. He is. Wow. Such an idiot.

 

"What," he says dryly, "you can't tell?"

 

"Without a concussion, maybe." He spins the band around his finger. It's a little loose, but Foggy had bought it that way. It won't come off easily, but. In case Matt got it into his head to punch things. It should. You know. Come off over his swollen knuckles or whatever.

 

"You should be nicer to your feelers," Foggy says. "With all those callouses and scars, I'm impressed you feel anything. It's tungsten."

 

Matt frowns, his entire face scrunching. It's kind of adorable. Foggy might be biased, but he's pretty sure that's a legitimate opinion. "Tungsten?"

 

"Yep," Foggy says. "Significantly harder than brass. Won't dent or bend. Shatters under shock or pressure though, so. Lifetime warranty for replacements. Please do not hesitate to sacrifice the ring rather than your finger."

 

Matt's eyes slit open. "It's heavy," he says.

 

He'd noticed. Brass is a relatively light-weight metal. Tungsten not so much. Matt must feel the difference a lot more than Foggy does. "Yeah, let it serve as a reminder not to let ninja kick your ass. How do you feel? No brain aneurysms?"

 

Matt actually seems to consider that, which is. Slightly. You know. Terrifying that he might be able to feel that shit. Terrifying but also a little reassuring. Aneurysms are a silent killer. "No," he says at last, shifting over a little bit to sprawl onto his back. He's tapping at the ring with his thumb nail. "You bought us new rings," he adds. Which. Yeah. Foggy was afraid he wasn't going to get away with that.

 

"Well, the brass certainly wasn't going to last us," he says, getting up off the floor. He kind of feels like pulling the chair closer, but. Yeah. No. He's probably. You know. Crossed enough lines already. "They're - um. Dark gray. Kind of a shiny silver rim. Pretty classy, actually. The kind of thing we could have worn at Landman and Zack - you know, back when you actually tried shaving on a regular basis."

 

Matt groans pathetically. Shaving is Matt's kryptonite. He'll do it, but he won't be happy about it.

 

With sleep no longer an option, and after Matt turns down food because he's still nauseous from the concussion, Foggy gets Matt's laptop and brings it over to the couch so they can watch something that doesn't have audio descriptions on it. Matt will pretend otherwise, but Foggy's pretty sure his descriptions are about ninety-percent better than anything a trained professional does. If only because he knows what will make Matt laugh.

 

Sometime after lunch, Karen shows up with take out, and they sandwich Matt between them and bicker over what this or that actor's expression means in which scene until Matt nearly ends up knocking the laptop onto the floor because he's laughing too hard to balance it on his knees. And overall, it's not such a bad day, really.

 

\--

 

Karen. Foggy loves Karen, okay? He does. He feels fluttery-bubbly for her, okay, so he loves Karen, bright and sweet. But Karen Page must be stopped.

 

"Um," Matt says because he is helpful and also apparently the brains of this outfit. He opens his mouth and moves it a lot but nothing comes out and eventually he just puts his hand on it and refuses to do anything useful.

 

Right. His spouse is useless. Thanks for nothing. "You're not wrong," he acknowledges, looking at Karen patiently, "But Matt's crappy corner apartment is not exactly meant for two people, nor is it sighted-friendly."

 

"Well, that can be worked around," Karen says. "It's actually very lovely in the daylight. And you're married, and wearing very nice rings. At this point, it's a lot stranger that you aren't living together!"

 

The worst thing about it is that Karen really is right. At this point, Matt and Foggy are married. They are co-signed on loans and their names are on the office lease and now they are actually married and Foggy is in deep with the Daredevil stuff. If he and Matt have a single hope for their marriage holding up in court for spousal privilege, which is supposed to be a side-benefit of this whole drunk decision, then. Living together. Makes sense.

 

Foggy will probably not survive playing house with his best friend. It's one thing to room together at school, or to share an apartment, or whatever. But. They're married. They have a totally platonic marriage. That Foggy wishes were less platonic. He is not dumb enough to torture himself by moving in with Matt.

 

"Well," Matt says, "Ms. Page has a point." Because he is the actual worst.

 

Foggy squeezes his eyes shut and pinches his nose because this. This is ridiculous. His friends are actually ganging up on him to torture him. Oh, not on purpose. But that is what is occurring here. And Matt? Matt is the actual worst. Because he has to know. That's the weird thing about all of this.

 

"So, Karen," Foggy says with a sharp smile, "When are you going to find some nice person to settle down with?"

 

Karen gapes at him like how dare he. "Uh," she says.

 

"Yeah, Karen," Matt chimes in, because he's not always awful, "Anyone in particular you have your eye on? I could put on the suit and have a nice little chat with them." He smiles. It's not the nice, handsome wounded duck smile. There's too many sharp points of teeth in it, for one.

 

Karen gapes at them like they're being unreasonable. "Um," she says, "no? How about no! Let's not further implicate us with Daredevil." But she's smiling a bit, so she probably doesn't mean it.

 

"I'm just saying," Foggy says, "you are awful concerned about marriage and moving in at the moment. If there's something you'd like to tell us, we are all ears. Well, Matt's all ears. I'm the eyes, obviously. I know a guy who knows a guy who owns a bakery, and their cakes are very in demand for weddings, I could put a good word in."

 

"I am not getting married," she protests with a laugh. "Because there is no one in my life to get married to. Like. At all. Just the two of you, and bigamy is still frowned upon in all fifty states."

 

"You know somebody that knows somebody?" Matt asks, turning to Foggy with a frown. "Why didn't you get us a cake? We never had a cake, Foggy."

 

Oh, Jesus, not this again. "Matt," he warns, "if you're not careful, my Mother is going to throw us a party and it'll be a whole thing with the entire extended family and then we'll be known solely as 'Anna's kid that gay-married his handsome lawyer friend.'"

 

"Oh," Karen says, taken aback, "so. Your family. That progressive, huh?"

 

"There is an actual reason I haven't come out to them," Foggy acknowledges. "Not that it would do any good. Then I'd just be the 'that funny kid of Anna's'. The first thing my Mom would ask us is 'when are you going to adopt' like two broke lawyers who are in debt can afford to raise children."

 

"Wow," she says.

 

"I really think we need a cake," Matt says. "I could - do without the whole. Party and family thing, though."

 

Come to think of it, having the whole Nelson brood around Matt does tend to make him clam up and develop a headache. Foggy used to think Matt was an introvert, but admittedly, something like ninety-percent of the Nelson brood have no clue what the hell 'volume control' is, and Aunt Marjorie is convinced that Matt's a convict and won't shut up about it, so.

 

"If I pick up a wedding cake, my mom's gonna hear about it," Foggy says. "Unfortunately, the guy that owns the bakery that my guy knows also knows my mother. He may, in fact, be my cousin."

 

"Well. We don't have to tell them it was a wedding cake," Karen says, and then she brightens. "I could pick it up for you."

 

"Well, there you go," Matt says, gesturing toward Karen with a smile. "Karen will pick it up for us."

 

That was it. Seriously. Seriously it. Karen Page has to be stopped.

 

\--

 

So. Something strange happens now whenever pretty girls come around the office.

 

Foggy is about nine times over being accustomed to the way that girls react to Matt. Karen, props to her, is actually extremely subtle about it, for all of the way she'd been pretty. You know. Obvious about being more interested in Matt than Foggy on their rather pathetically doomed date. He's accustomed to it. It's still sometimes upsetting, but that's just how the world spins.

 

The sun shines, concrete is hard, more people than should be are actual criminals, and when given a choice, girls prefer Matt or nothing at all.

 

This is not a new phenomena. It just seems more extreme than usual, because Matt is possibly one of the most attractive and charismatic people to have graced Manhattan in a long time, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers be damned. Pretty girls don't flirt with Foggy until they've known him a while, which is fine. Foggy's dates are therefore never a frightening disaster the way Matt's dates are about ninety percent of the time.

 

Foggy doesn't think much of the lovely lady that Matt is insisting that they defend; she's either a Karen Page or she's another one of Matt's morally-ambiguous Catwoman types. Only time will tell.

 

Matt lures her in, because he is an actual Devil in disguise apparently, even though he'd deigned to explain to Foggy that he was supposed to be a symbol, a reminder, a threat. He is not above temptation, however, so: a devil in many ways. Matt tempts her in, and then hands her off to Foggy and Karen while he - goes. To go back-flipping through alleys or punching the answers to her case out of someone's face, or whatever he does when he pulls shit like this. And. Something strange? Happens?

 

She? Kind of flirts? With Foggy? Which is strange. And suspicious, a bit, because. What.

 

"Oh my god," Karen says, as soon as Ms Shahin leaves. Karen is clearly irked. Almost outraged, even. "Can you believe that?"

 

"Believe what," Foggy asks, because he's never sure just what Karen's on about. She's unfortunately very sharp, and isn't to be trusted, see: convincing her drunk best friends to marry, and also bringing up the issue of cohabitation.

 

Karen clearly doesn't know whether or not to take him seriously, but after taking a look to decide, she says, "Her! Flirting with you! When you are clearly married!"

 

"Oh, that," he says, "Yeah, I don't know, either."

 

"What do you mean, 'oh yeah, that'," she demands. "She was flirting with a clearly married man. Married, to another man! To Matt, specifically! And I - I promise you," she says, gesturing, "that any woman will notice that your rings match. Okay."

 

He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure she did. So in her eyes, she was flirting with a married homosexual."

 

"Oh my god," Karen huffs, and gives up on him.

 

He thinks he's home-free, at least until the next day when he's unpacking the paperwork he took home last night from his bag and Matt comes in. Well, that on it's own isn't bad, but after the usual morning small-talk, Karen tosses her hair over her shoulder and says, "And also, the client you brought to us spent the entire consultation hour hitting on your husband."

 

"She what," Matt says.

 

Aw, shit. Foggy doesn't exactly run for the door or anything, but he's probably there in record time. Matt cocks his head at him, but his brow is furrowed the way it does when he's a bit confused.

 

That's a bit how Foggy feels, too. It's not like he and Matt have sat down and had a discussion about how. They're like. Married now. Platonically. And what that might mean about their future on the dating scene. Matt might be married to Hell's Kitchen and Manhattan at large and maybe even all of NYC, but Foggy isn't exactly looking forward to being a superhero's widow. He is a simple man with simple needs, okay?

 

"It's nothing," he says to Matt, cutting Karen a reproachful look. "We spoke about this, Karen."

 

Karen throws her hands up. "Well, excuse me," she says, incredulous. "I think your spouse has every right to know when some - some floozy hits on you!"

 

"I'm sure Ms. Shahin is a perfectly nice lady, Karen," he says, "let's not throw the 'f' word around."

 

"She was a floozy," Karen tells Matt earnestly.

 

"W- wait," Matt says, holding his hands out at both of them to get them to shut up for a second. "Nadine was flirting with you?"

 

"And, of course she's Nadine to you," Foggy sighs. He's not actually mad. He has long since come to term with Matt's player ways. "Look, it's no big deal. Karen was there the entire time, and we talked about it, and clearly Ms. Shahin is aware that I am spoken for - for a given value of 'spoken for' - so it was just. Flirting without intent. Perfectly harmless."

 

"Uh huh," Matt says, "Karen?"

 

"That was by no stretch of the imagination 'flirting without intent'," she says earnestly, because apparently Karen is a shit-stirrer.

 

"Uh huh," Matt says again, and he places both his hands on his hips and cocks his jaw like he's trying not to grind his teeth. "Foggy?"

 

"Okay, no," Foggy says, pointing at Karen. "Objection! Regardless of what intent or manner Ms. Shahin may or may not have had when she was speaking with me, there was no desire or intent on my part to engage in any actions which would be considered illegal or immoral by any party present."

 

Matt cocks his head, then nods. "Sustained," he says, turning. "Karen?"

 

She looks deeply offended at having her testimony discarded. "Well - she was really out of bounds, I mean. It was really over the top and unnecessary, and I think it'll prove a distraction in the case. I think that for the good of everyone involved, Foggy shouldn't be on the case."

 

"Oh, now wait a moment," he says with a huff. "If I'm not on the case, then that means Matt, and Karen - putting Matt and a woman of dubious morality in the same room is a disaster waiting to happen."

 

"Well," Matt says, "We'll just - partner up." He smiles, wide and pleased, and totally showing off by walking backwards through his stupid office door. Foggy has a vicious moment of wishing the door was closed so Matt would end up running up against it, but it's half wood and he'd probably figure it out through - oh, who knows. His nose, probably.

 

What the hell was even any of that. Like Matt was supposed to be jealous, or something? Except for the weird fact that he did. Kind of. Actually seem jealous? Which. What. What does it matter to him if some woman flirts with Foggy? They're already partners, in about every way that matters but one. God, Matt is so dumb sometimes. And Karen. Foggy glares at her.

 

"What," she challenges.

 

Narrowing his eyes at her, he says, "One of these days, you will be stopped." Karen looks deeply unimpressed by his theatrics, and so he moves on to the larger problem at hand, waving his arms in exasperation. "And also - stop folding like a deck of cards every time he does his stupid 'I'm onto you' face!"

 

Her mouth drops open. "That's not fair," she protests, "You have had - years to gain an immunity, okay, I have had like. Months."

 

"More like a year and a half! Get with the program. There's a rewards card and everything."

 

Jeez. Foggy had been looking forward to having someone around that could help him snap at Matt's heels, not someone who got softer and softer on Matt with every passing month! A Matt who went unchallenged was a bored Matt and bored Matts dressed in pajamas and went out to fistfight criminals like a whackjob.

 

Although. He really couldn't complain too loudly about Matt actually sticking around to help with the desk work this time.

 

\--

 

About the second time Claire calls Foggy to come babysit Matt through the night because he'll get up like an idiot and tear out his stitches if someone isn't there to keep him in bed, Foggy says, "I am seriously re-evaluating Karen's suggestion that we live together."

 

Matt, who was until that moment trying to struggle into a shirt, says "What."

 

"Yeah, just trying to cut out the middle-man, here," Foggy says, somewhat reasonably, he thinks. "There is no way I'm ever going to have the stomach to sew you up, or the years of experience, as Claire would point out, but -" He shrugs. "Maybe she would feel better about sending you home to someone."

 

Sliding the shirt down with a wince, Matt says, "Oh. Um."

 

"Or," Foggy says, rolling his eyes, "I could just keep getting phone calls at three in the morning or later, and getting dressed, and coming all the way over to your apartment, but hey. It's whatever."

 

His ability to survive playing house with Matt kind of didn't matter when the alternative was losing more precious sleep or having Matt falling over things and pulling his stitches out. He'll just. Do what he always does, especially when Matt gets flirty with someone. Repress. Repress. Repress.

 

"So," Matt says, slow and careful, "you're willing to move in for Claire's sake of mind?"

 

"Sure, let's go with that," Foggy says.

 

Matt's head cocks. He used to be more subtle about it. His face crinkles a bit and he says, "You didn't want to move in just two weeks ago - but now you've changed your mind. Why?"

 

Like it's some kind of mystery. "Oh, I don't know," he says. "Because Claire had to stitch another scar across your back? Because you're my friend, and I worry about you? Apparently, Matthew, I like you enough that while black-out drunk, I agreed to marry you, and let me tell you, I am not a drop-of-a-dime commitment guy."

 

"No, I." Matt says. "I know that. I get why you want to move in now. I just. I'm thinking back to two weeks ago, when we were having lunch with Karen, and you didn't want to then."

 

"Yeah, well, that was two weeks ago, and I am allowed to change my mind," he says. Also, Matt is a moron who doesn't understand Foggy nearly as well as Foggy had thought he did, if he can't figure out that Foggy hates being coerced into stuff. Foggy is more than capable of making dumb decisions, so long as it's actually his idea. "And I actually really never said 'no', if you'll remember that."

 

"Well, you didn't say 'yes' either, which may I remind you, is important," Matt reasons, even as he putters around to go flop down onto the couch. He almost immediately regrets it, grimacing and arching off the wound Claire stitched shut. "You might be my husband, but I can't just assume a 'yes', I know that."

 

Foggy wishes that his heart didn't abruptly decide to do jumping jacks just because he's never heard Matt call him his husband before. Seriously. What the hell, his heart. Also, what the hell is Matt even talking about, because. That. That doesn't sound like they're having a conversation about Foggy moving in anymore? What.

 

"There is also the not-so-small matter of leases," Foggy points out. "I can't just pack up like 'la-de-da' and move in without either maintaining payments on my place or taking the hit for the early-cancellation fee."

 

"Ah," Matt says, straightening slightly, "But you'll save money after the lease is up. Also, I have heard that you might know a lawyer."

 

"Matt," Foggy says, and he can't believe he's saying this, "You can't sue my apartment building into letting me live with you."

 

"I could," he says, because Matt is an actual contrary piece of shit. "I don't think I'd win, but an attempt would be made. You heard Karen. It's weird that we're married and we don't live together."

 

Foggy hates it when Matt gets like this. Foggy had actually changed his mind and thought that he should move in with Matt for Daredevil related reasons, and now he has Matt agreeing with him, but in a way that makes him want to disagree. He's not sure if Matt does it on purpose or what.

 

"Alright, yeah, so I agree," he says. "In case that's not clear enough for you, Matt, this is me, saying, 'yes', and unless this entire time you've been feinting, I'm going to move in with you. Regardless of leases."

 

"Oh," Matt says. "Um."

 

"Of course," Foggy says flatly, "if you have been feinting, then I'll need to hear a 'no', now, since communicating clearly and opening has suddenly become so important to you."

 

"No. That's. That's fine. You moving in," Matt says, somewhat awkwardly. He's like a cat that has tipped a potted plant over and doesn't know what to do with it now. Jesus. That's Foggy's spouse. This is the person that Foggy has pledged to spend the rest of his life with.

 

Of course, he was already planning on doing that before this whole 'getting Vegas-married thing', but that is beside the point.

 

Foggy sends a prayer up to God, because surely God really likes Matt, or otherwise the idiot would be dead by now. And if not, maybe He really likes Foggy? Maybe? Hopefully? Foggy hopes he's not inadvertently attracting the attention of a mad and vengeful God, like in the Old Testament.

 

"Okay," he says, "so I'm moving in."

 

"Yep. Good talk," Matt says, pops off the couch and vaults over the back of it, staggers a bit when he pulls his fucking stitches like a _moron_ , and offers, "Beer?"

 

"Matthew Michael Murdock, get back on the couch before you bleed over everything!"

 

\--

 

So. Um. Thanks to Foggy's own stupid, soft heart. He's. You know. Torturing himself?

 

Well, he moves in with Matt Murdock, so it's pretty much the same thing. So Matt's shitty apartment only has a few rooms, right? And Foggy's not going to be sleeping on the couch, and neither is Matt. His bedroom isn't exactly large, either.

 

So. Platonically sharing a bed. With his spouse. Hmm.

 

Okay, so at first, it's not that big of a deal, right? They discussed it like rational, emotionally mature adults before Foggy had moved his things in. Okay, so mostly Matt had pursed his mouth and buckled his brow and aimed his face at Foggy and said, "No big deal, right?" and Foggy had immediately said, "psh, no!" and yeah. That was maybe a mistake or something.

 

Alright, but it wasn't such a big deal. The first night, they spent the evening up working on a case until Foggy couldn't see straight and Matt's jaw was going to unhinge from yawning, and any self-consciousness had been ignored in the face of all-encompassing exhaustion. Matt had been up in the morning before Foggy, so.

 

So. It kind of set a pattern? And of course, there were the nights when Matt goes off punching people in the dark. Of course. Which means that he'd be gone until too-dark-o'clock. And by that time, Foggy has already been lulled into a kind of familiarity, that even climbing into Matt's empty bed doesn't keep him up very long. So. It is. Fine. Right?

 

Yeah, alright, it's fine. It's all fine. Foggy is generally horrified by Matt's bruises and scars and bloodied bandages and so. It isn't a huge problem, seeing Matt in various states of undress, although Matt is generally really good at not being undressed. It just.

 

"I feel like one of those old gladiator slaves," Matt muses, twitching agitatedly under Foggy's hands.

 

"Yeah, you look like one," he says grumpily. "You sure this doesn't stretch? I feel like this scar looks like it's stretched. Have you been following up with scarring aftercare? Who am I kidding? Look at who I'm talking to. I'm lucky you let Claire patch you up at all."

 

Okay, so maybe. Maybe Foggy becomes a worrywart when exposed to Matt's injuries in such an obvious manner. Even the ones that have already healed. He blames his mother. He's the oldest of too many kids and she still worried over every last one of them. He was pretty sure being the eldest meant he wasn't supposed to be as babied as much as the others. Apparently it clicked with his head, somewhere; he can be downright sociopathic at times, but - not with his friends. Not in the least.

 

And especially not with Matt. The moment Matt's stupid heart starts bleeding all over his face, Foggy either has to punch a wall or get the fuck out of the vicinity; the use of that thing should be against the Geneva Conventions or something.

 

"Look," he says, "I know women like a nice battle-scar and all, but this is getting past sexy and into downright alarming territory."

 

"I am at least ninety - three? Percent sure I can pull this off," Matt jokes, twisting a bit to smirk at Foggy with his stupid smug face.

 

"Uh huh. Matt. When women see this kind of scarring on a blind person they don't know is a vigilante, they're going to think you're being abused," Foggy says flatly, poking Matt hard on the scar that started this all, relatively new and knotted and - naturally - stretched.

 

Groaning seems to be an appropriate response to his very rational observations. At least until Matt brightens. "You could do scar aftercare for me."

 

"What," Foggy says, because what.

 

"Well - I can take care of the ones in easy reach," Matt allows. He's got his court-face and his court-voice going on, which is. Bad. "But a lot of the time, I've strained things - you know. In my shoulders and back. Or legs. So it's difficult to reach." He twists a bit like he's going to demonstrate or something. "So. Since you're worried about it."

 

"Let me get this straight," Foggy says. "You want to go out and beat the snot out of people, then go and get patched up by the lovely Nurse Temple with all of her TLC and loving hands, and then. You want to come home to me. Your loving husband. And get a massage."

 

"Well," Matt says.

 

Matt makes his teasing, hopeful 'aw shucks' face, which naturally incorporates his head and shoulders because it's not like he can refine the look in a mirror so he naturally over-plays the whole thing to make sure he's communicating the idea - or he's just hamming it up. He could be hamming it up. Foggy has seen this act turned against about - oh. Twenty - twenty-five? Twenty five girls in the years he's known Matt.

 

Matt is fucking shameless, is what he is.

 

"You're disgusting," Foggy tells him. "I am - I am ashamed to know you. My own spouse. How dare you. In this context, Claire is the other woman, if only because I married you first. Or actually I met you first, but I also married you first. I hope she rips you a new one when she figures that out."

 

"Foggy," he protests. "I'm being serious here." The lingering smile around his mouth fades a bit, and he sobers. "And I told you: it didn't work out."

 

Foggy knuckles his shoulder in commiseration. He already gave his condolences, and - well. 'Her loss' is still in effect, it seems, since he drunk-married Matt. "Yeah, I'm being serious, too," he says. "I'll have you know that I work all day. Hard work, too! I'm on my feet all day, and you expect me to - what? Put aside some time to give you a rubdown? And what do I get in return?"

 

"I can probably think of something," Matt says.

 

Matt is legitimately the worst, Foggy thinks. There's no way he doesn't know. If he didn't know before The Night That Shall Not Be Spoken Of, then surely that night, he figured it out. Foggy is not exactly an overly complex puzzle; he's one of those thirty-two piece jigsaw puzzles. He comes with a picture guide and everything. From the first, awkward, fumbling pass he made at Matt to - to everything else. To whatever it feels and smells like to Matt. Heart palpitations and everything.

 

Well. Could be worse. What else is Matt supposed to do with a friend who is in love with him? Awkward as it is, Matt's weird, quasi-come ons are a lot easier to deal with than Matt fucking off somewhere because he's too straight or otherwise uninterested to deal with it.

 

"Think about buying me my favorite take-out the next night," Foggy says with sigh, which is how cheaply he's bought as Matt's personal masseur - only, you know. Literally rather than figuratively. He is a masseur, not a 'masseur,' so to say.

 

Okay, but other than that. Normal. Completely normal. They wear themselves out with casework, or Matt suits up and disappears off into the night, and they sleep together - just sleeping, of course - and Matt's almost always out of bed before Foggy wakes up. Which is weird. Foggy remembers Matt as being much less of a morning person, and also Matt can't be getting a lot of sleep. Or maybe Foggy's just sleeping more deeply than usual. It could be that. Matt's tastes in sheets and beds may be expensive, but there's a clear pay-off in the quality of sleep.

 

But he and Matt are clearly having some boundary issues, best described by the morning he woke up wrapped around his best friend. Alright, it wasn't so bad as all of that. Matt just. Must have gotten home from Daredeviling to Foggy having. Invaded his side of the bed or something. Because. Well, obviously his arm had been there, at least, because his hand is full of static and that. That is Matt's head. On his arm.

 

That's Matt's head on his arm, and that's Matt's death grip on the front of his shirt and Matt has tried really hard to twist into his usual miserable ball, but Foggy's limbs must have gotten in the way and so he is just a sort of twisted pretzel of self-punishment.

 

"Fuck," Foggy says, still mostly asleep. Matt startles awake, because of course he does, so Foggy promptly smothers his face with his hand despite the sleepy protest it earns him. "No, no, sleep," he tells Matt, leveraging himself away.

 

He doesn't get very far, because he is only a simple human man, and Matt is a ninja-vigilante, and when he's not a vigilante, he is an octopus. So. Octopi, right? Open jars the same size as them. So. Matt latches onto his arm with more strength than anyone who was just asleep has any right to and mumbles, "Foggy. Where're you goin'?"

 

"Well, nowhere with that hand," Foggy says, because sometimes he gets sassy under stress. And he's a bit in distress. Like it's not bad enough to sleep on Matt's sheets, which smell like him. It's worse waking up smelling Matt because he's using him like a teddy bear. Foggy is more accustomed to that dynamic going the other way around.

 

Also, Matt's grabbed the arm that Foggy had been smothering him with, naturally, which was the only functional arm that he had at the moment. So.

 

Matt unfolds a bit, his face sleepy and unfocused and his hair sticking out in seven different directions because he apparently didn't bother with a shower before coming to bed. It's really. Kind of. You know. A dangerous look on Matt's face. It's really. Really kind of dangerous. And it gets worse, because Matt smiles then - just a bit, a kind of sloppy curve of his mouth, and he releases Foggy to rub his hand over his face.

 

Foggy, not being one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, fucks right off, ignoring the sound of Matt hitting the talking clock behind him. His heart is hammering in his chest because he's a legitimate idiot, and he's going to take a cold shower until he remembers that, Jesus Christ.

 

\--

 

"You. Um," Matt says, because words are his friends.

 

Okay, words are usually Matt's friends, but that just means that Foggy lives for the moments when Matt just loses all control and understanding of them. Does that make him a bad person? It usually happens when Matt is a bit overwhelmed, emotionally. As much as Matt hates it when his feelings get the best of him, that probably makes Foggy a bad person.

 

"I sent Karen in," Foggy says, "So if we're very, abnormally lucky, my Mom is still in the dark that I went and got married behind her back."

 

Karen shifts a bit, because she's still slightly uncomfortable with that situation, but then she gets a hold of herself and beams at Matt. "The entire thing was Foggy's idea. Very romantic, right?"

 

Foggy rolls his eyes. "I am pretty sure I don't have a romantic bone in my body, Karen," he says testily.

 

"I- I'm pretty sure that tiered cakes are usually only used for weddings," Matt says, cautiously approaching the coffee table. It's technically Foggy's table because Matt has never bothered to replace most of his broken furniture, for whatever strange Matt-related reasons that is, but. They're married. So. Matt's things are Foggy's things and vice versa and all that happy shit.

 

Anyway, the important part of all of this - the cake, and the streamers, and the flowers - very modest flowers, mostly 'scentless', because Foggy isn't rude enough to fill Matt's home with something that's going to punish him - at least. Not _yet_ , Foggy is not that rude. One of these days, he knows Matt will piss him off enough. Today is not that day. Today, there are balloons and flowers and a very nice, very expensive tiered cake. Matt's cake, specifically.

 

It wasn't a huge surprise, probably - or Foggy hadn't thought it was going to be. Matt probably knew they were up to something, something specifically to do with a bakery, but he's also. Looking kind of stunned. So. Maybe they were better at this surprise thing than they thought. Foggy feels vaguely accomplished and smug.

 

"Well, the cakes were purchased separately, of course. We tiered it after we got home. It's amazing what you can learn on the internet," Karen says happily, holding her hand out toward the cake like 'ta-da!'

 

"Alright," Foggy says, "I'm almost afraid to ask, but - anything weird we should know about the cake? I told Freddy that simple and natural was best, but -"

 

"No," Matt says, "it's - good. Good. Good idea." He nods a few times, rubs his stubble a bit, then turns to Foggy. "You sure Anna doesn't know?"

 

"No," Foggy says, rolling his eyes. "An effort was made. I am pretty sure that she doesn't know, but I'm not going to swear anything about my mother to you, and you should know better."

 

Matt looks vaguely intimidated, then goes back to contemplating his cake. It's a nice cake, although the cute little rosettes that Freddy did in the icing are probably lost on Matt. And the poles. The plastic poles they used to make three cakes into a tiered cake, they're showing, but that probably matters even less.

 

Karen had made a long argument about white cake being traditional, but Foggy had argued that Matt doesn't even like white cake - doesn't like vanilla in general, really, which was why he was arguing for something more along the lines of a strawberry cake. At that point, Freddy had pointed out that since they were getting three already, they could go for the trifecta.

 

"Our wedding cake is Neapolitan," Matt says, tilting his face toward Foggy.

 

Foggy probably lights up like the Fourth of July, because he's transparent and easily pleased and mostly transparent, Goddammit. "Yes! Yes, it is, thank you. Thank you, Matthew. You see, Karen, I told you he'd understand," he says smugly. It's not why he loves Matt, but it certainly doesn't hurt. Matt gets him and how he thinks, even when other people try to cast doubt on that.

 

"Oh, shut up," Karen protests. "How was I supposed to know that he can smell different cake flavors? It smells like icing and sugar to me."

 

"Well, she's not wrong," Matt murmurs.

 

"Yes, but we are taking super senses into consideration here," Foggy pointed out.

 

"Just cut your dumb cake already," she huffs, holding out the cake knife. Matt is closer to her and so reaches out and takes it, therefore freeing her to get out her phone. She shoots Foggy a triumphant look in response to the grimace on his face. "Alright," she says sweetly, "make good with the pictures. It's traditional for husband and spouse to cut the first slice together."

 

"Oh, well, if it's tradition," Matt says, turning toward him, and Foggy was seriously going to get Karen back, first of all, and secondly, get Matt back for encouraging her this way. Him and his stupidly attractive smug little smirk, like the asshole he is.

 

"Fine, fine," he says, stepping up. "You know, you should be wearing a tux for this."

 

"Maybe you should have considered that before trying to play this off as a surprise party," Matt points out under his breath. "And it's not like you got dressed for this, either."

 

"Oh, like you didn't know," Foggy says grumpily. He curls his hand around Matt's on the knife, and says, "Bottom tier?"

 

"Probably safest that way," Matt says, "I think the whole thing is going to collapse here in another minute. We should probably hurry."

 

Karen gets entirely too into the whole wedding pictures thing. She's just way into the entire thing altogether, which isn't entirely surprising, considering this is all her fault to begin with. They cut the cake, which somehow deserves a small, restrained cheer from her general direction. Also more heart palpitations from Foggy, which is just plain embarrassing, but at least Matt pretends not to know.

 

They eat their cake with a bottle of cheap champagne, because they're classy like that. Foggy and Matt foist the vanilla layer off on Karen, because she's the one that wanted it in the first place, and Matt contents himself with the strawberry layer.

 

By the time Karen takes her leave, and the rest of the vanilla layer with her, Foggy is feeling pleasantly full and relaxed. Getting drunk off cheap champagne probably isn't possible for people with their habits and coping mechanisms, but it kinds of feels like that. Foggy feels pleasantly bright and sparkly. It's good.

 

"Oh," Matt says suddenly, in the middle of licking frosting off his thumb. Foggy's going to pass on compliments back to Freddy, because anything that Matt seems to actually enjoy and not just suffer through is a big deal. "I forgot to ask. The cake wasn't red, was it?"

 

"The only one with a fetish for red around here is you," Foggy says, although that's not entirely true. He's responsible for at least half of the red things in Matt's wardrobe. He might have a tiny red fetish. Hey, it's a good color on Matt, even if the suit is. A little. Ergh.

 

"But no," he continues. "The entire cake was iced white, cross my heart, because I am classy enough to provide an actual white wedding cake. It was a bit plain, honestly, but fondant doesn't exactly taste like something good to eat."

 

Matt grins, lax and loose and pleased. He looks like the cat that got the canary and was rewarded with cream. It's an unfairly attractive look, but Foggy is mostly immune to Matt's dubious charms after so many years.

 

"Even the strawberry layer was surprising tasteful," he muses. "They usually make it a kind of barf-pink, but it was just kind of a pale - like. Blush pink. Taste good?"

 

"Ah. It was pretty fair," Matt says mildly. "You said your cousin owned the bakery?" Foggy hums an affirmative. "Well, I'd expect nothing less from one of the Nelson brood."

 

"Jackass," Foggy says, somewhat fondly.

 

Matt licks his fork clean and then stands, carrying the plate over to the sink. Karen and Foggy are not really interior decorators, and some of the streamers and flowers have fallen, and the balloons - never filled with helium in the first place - are scattered across the floor. He watches Matt kick one out of his path with one careless flick, and frowns.

 

"Those aren't going to mess with your senses, are they?" he asks. "I mean. I am not really up to cleaning all this stuff up on my own right now. Can we leave them for later?"

 

"You mean never?" Matt asks wryly.

 

"No," he protests, leaning back against the couch and hanging his head back. "One day. One day we'll pick them up. Or wait: let's make Karen do it, I think she owes us, considering the sitcom our life has become thanks to her."

 

"I thought you said my life was an action movie," Matt says, approaching the couch.

 

"Okay, so your life is an action movie," Foggy corrects amicably; he's too full of deliciously rich chocolate cake and champagne to argue about something as dumb as this. "My life is still a sitcom. I actually prefer that to an action movie. How many people actually die in a sitcom? Hardly any. Huh. I feel like there's a kid's movie here, about characters from different genres meeting -"

 

There are times in life when the best reaction is to have no reaction. Like. Fight or flight, right? Foggy doesn't really have a fight or flight response. He has 'deer-in-headlights' and 'chicken with its head cut off'. This is a deer-in-headlights moment. Because Matt. Matt has bent over the back of the couch and. Is kind of.

 

Kissing? Him? Um. What.

 

"That's a lot more awkward than they make it sound in books," Matt says when he straightens, licking his lips. Foggy barely registers Matt's eyebrow quirk, simply because of their positions making Matt's mouth the easiest thing to look at. "Foggy?"

 

"No-I-um-what," Foggy says reasonably. Then: "Did you seriously take kissing tips from a book. Matt."

 

"N - no," Matt says, a bit incredulous. He has no right. No right at all, not when he's the one that brought it up like that! What the hell.

 

"Arboreal as humans may be," Foggy says skeptically, "Kissing is meant to be done when both people are generally oriented the same way."

 

Matt looks vaguely like he might be thinking too hard on this, and oh God, no. No. no, no, no, no. Foggy is barely going to survive one awkward kiss from Matt, he is not going to survive repressing a great deal of experimentation, because Matt has decided to take his words as a challenge. No.

 

"Matt, no," he says, ducking out from under Matt's bent body. "I am not doing anything freaky with you and Daredevil, thanks anyway."

 

"Kissing is not actually freaky," Matt sighs, like he's being difficult or it's unreasonable not to want to do freaky experimental stuff with a superhero. What even goes through Matt's head most days? It's an actual mystery for Foggy, despite how well Matt tends to understand him in most situations.

 

"It immediately becomes freaky the moment you introduce crazy rubber suit antics, Matt," Foggy objects, and Matt sighs loudly and straightens.

 

"No one said anything about the suit, Foggy," he points out.

 

"I might not have super senses," he allows, "But I can pretty much smell it when you start thinking about your supersuit."

 

Matt groans, but his mouth curls into a reluctant smile that slowly smooths and warms. "Well. That's probably for the better," he says, but he no longer seems interesting in kissing Foggy. So. That's a relief. "For the record," he says, "I'm more worried about the flowers than the balloons. You couldn't get fake ones?"

 

"What would be the point of fake ones," Foggy asks skeptically. "I mean. We could have. We definitely could have, and then left them up indefinitely, but that seemed a bit pointless."

 

Alright, so it turns out Matt has two faces that are officially a violation of the Geneva Conventions. One is his stupid sad face that he pulls sometimes. The other one is that stupidly pleased, bashful look right there, which. Officially is illegal. Foggy is going to file a suit and there will be precedents set, Jesus Christ.

 

\--

 

Matt doesn't get up before Foggy anymore. Which is. Incredibly awkward.

 

Okay, it's not always awkward. Most of the time, it's not awkward! Foggy is pretty sure Matt's not accustomed to sharing a bed and he mostly keeps to his side. Most nights. Which is fine, whatever. There are. Unfortunately. Some nights, though. The Daredevil nights, specifically.

 

Foggy had thankfully already spent all his sleepless nights worrying about Matt being out on Daredevil business in his own apartment. Every time Matt came into the office - sometimes with new bruises or winces - Foggy relaxed, just. A little bit more. It's all an act of repression, of course. Because Foggy knows. Daredevil almost killed Matt before, and Matt. Can't do Daredevil alone. So.

 

That. That leaves Karen and Foggy in a. Kind of unfortunate situation.

 

But anyway. Foggy's gotten good enough at repression and denial that he can go to bed alone and sleep through the night. Not as well or as deeply as he does when Matt doesn't go out - no. Not that deeply. He's always got one ear out for his phone, because some nights Claire will call ahead of Matt to let Foggy know he's on Devil-sitting duty.

 

On the nights she doesn't, when Matt comes home in one piece, Foggy wakes up the next morning stuck in some kind of medieval torture device or something. Oh, it might look like Foggy's the one wrapped around Matt, but that's not true in the least.

  


Seriously, the pretzeling that Matt does in his sleep can not be comfortable. It certainly doesn't look comfortable. It actually isn't comfortable for Foggy, because Matt's head is hard and depending on their positions, it always ends up butted up against Foggy's chest or his chin, and the latter always gives him a crick in his neck. He's not flexible like Matt, and he certainly isn't made of steel like Matt, so when Matt slings his leg over Foggy's and there's just. No getting up until Matt lets go.

  


So yeah. Hmm.

  


The worse bit of it doesn't even happen in bed, though, which. Which that sounds like that stupid game where you read fortune cookies and add 'in bed' to the end. Foggy's life is now a joke, hurray. Okay, but the worse bit actually happens out in public where people are starting to notice.

 

"Oh, hey," Karen says brightly to him one day, after Matt's gone off on his own on hopefully legal endeavors as it is still daylight. Karen has come to stand in his office doorway, looking very pretty and cute with the way she's lurking in it with a happy smile and her head cocked. She says, smugly, "So, I see you two are in the honeymoon phase."

 

Only because Foggy's life is a joke now does he not choke on all of nothing. He cuts her a reproachful look. "We are about seven months past any sort of 'honeymoon' phase. If there had been a honeymoon phase, Karen, that would have been the - probably the fifth month we knew each other back in school."

 

Not the first four, because despite his overtures toward friendship and Matt's initial eager reaction, Matt got all squirrelly and elusive. It had been a perilous few months of Matt ducking out and staying with girls and never exactly telling Foggy 'no' but not saying 'yes' either. Then in the fifth month, there'd been an abrupt turn around where Foggy was suddenly Matt's best friend and since then they've rarely been far from each other's side.

 

Or. No. Wait. Goddammit, that means that he and Matt are actually exactly on schedule for this to be their 'honeymoon phase.'

 

"I hate everything," Foggy adds thoughtfully. "Okay. Maybe. I'm curious as to why you think so."

 

Karen gives him an incredulous look. "Foggy," she says. "Matt's pulling this dumb, 'hung the stars and moon' look on you."

 

"Ah, crap," he says with a grimace. "I was hoping I was hallucinating that."

 

She looks at him like he's the biggest idiot to have ever crossed her path. "You were hoping you were hallucinating your spouse giving you the exact same looks you give him whenever he makes particularly good closing arguments or so much as breathes in your general direction."

 

Well. When she puts it that way, it does sound pretty dumb. "I get where that sounds bad," he says, "and with us being married and everything, it's not like I am any more of a target of his enemies than I was before, but. Matt. Matt doesn't do well. With the whole. Feelings thing. They tend to get the better of him, see: this whole deal with Daredevil."

 

"You're joking," she says in a tone of voice that says he _better_ be joking. "Matt fell apart when the two of you were fighting."

 

"Yeah, exactly," he says. "And that was not just me, Karen. That was him dealing with wanting to murder a guy, and then being torn to bits, and also his girlfriend at the time dumped his dumb ass. Because apparently she's smarter than I am, since I married the idiot. I did the exact opposite of what I should to do."

 

"Uh, no?" Karen steps over and sets her hands on his desk like this is an interrogation. "Foggy, you married the man you love. That's what you're supposed to do when you love someone. You grab tight and you don't let go."

 

"Yeah, letting go is not exactly what I'm doing here," Foggy says with a sigh, leaning back in his chair.

 

"Well, you're not exactly jumping for joy, either," she points out, straightening and raking her hair back behind her ear. She looks at him for a second then says, "Oh, come on. I feel like I'm you guys' fairy godmother or something. Your success as a married couple reflects on me, Foggy, so - talk to your godmother, already. Okay?"

 

"Ugh," he groans. "Don't remind me. I still haven't gotten you back for this whole married thing, and the living-together thing - you have a lot of comeuppance coming, Page."

 

She scoffs. "You do not want to start that with me. You will not win, Foggy Nelson."

 

Yeah, but he's already losing so much, he doesn't see why he shouldn't go on and start a war on one more losing front.

 

Because he is definitely losing on the Matt front. His heart does ridiculous acrobatics when he catches Matt aiming one of those smiles his direction. It's not that obvious, he thinks, except that he knows Matt. It's small enough to overlook, and often Matt rests his jaw on his palm like he knows to try to hide it with his fingers - small and secret and hooked into the corner of his mouth, the edges of his eyes crinkling almost invisibly behind his glasses.

 

But the thing is - he loves Matt, but his heart is still his own. It's just. If he loses - and he is losing - that smile spells out a big, huge, flashing Game Over.

 

Unrequited feelings are nothing - Foggy Nelson is the king of surviving unrequited feelings. But if Matt makes a place for himself inside Foggy's chest, then that's going to be it. Foggy is going to be ruined. There won't be room for anyone else, and after Matt's gone - however he's gone - no one else will ever fit there right way ever again.

 

And there's no fairy godmother in the world that could ever magic that back the way it was.

 

\--

 

In the middle of Thai and beer and a relatively simple case they can wrap up pretty quick for some cash, Matt says, "We should probably tell your mother."

 

"What," Foggy says, noodles hanging out of his mouth.

 

Foggy looks at Matt a little incredulously, which is a mistake. Matt hardly ever wears his glasses at home anymore, and right now he has his sleeves rolled up to just short of his elbows, and for some reason it makes the dark ring on his finger stand out more than ever, like his watch draws attention to it or something. Foggy is mostly numb to Matt's. Everything. But sometimes he gets caught off guard and.

 

"I mean," Matt says, licking his lips. "It's only going to get more awkward the longer we put it off. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be the one three years from now to inform her that her only son got married and never told her."

 

Matt has a point, Foggy acknowledges, scooping the noodles into his mouth. He really does. He's pretty sure he won't be able to keep it a secret for three years - something will happen, Daredevil aside. Foggy is actually a little impressed that they've kept it a secret for so many months now.

 

"Oh - kay?" Foggy sets down the box and chopsticks. "You. You do know what that means, right?"

 

Bracing his elbows on his knees, Matt laces his fingers and rubs his thumbs together. "Yeah, a little bit," he says. "I'm hoping the whole - gay thing will throw them off enough to not make too big of a deal."

 

"Yeah, but they're all going to be talking about it," Foggy points out, "and you have super hearing, and I don't know whether I am going to laugh or cry if you end up punching one of my uncles out."

 

Matt laughs, low and dry, and his mouth quirks. "As long as you don't put me in the doghouse if I break someone jaw."

 

Well - but Matt usually has good reasons for punching people, is the thing. Even if it's what he wants to do in the first place: fighting them. Hurting them. He makes sure he has a good reason. And that's Foggy's family, but so is Matt. Hell. Foggy _chose_ Matt. Foggy chose Matt years ago, and now he's married to him, and holy shit.

 

If they tell Foggy's family - if they tell his _Mom_ , then. Then this isn't. Just a thing between Matt and Karen and him, and whatever client they pull off the streets and little old ladies. It's not just a thing between friends. It's not, anyway, not with the papers filed and the rings on their fingers and them sharing an apartment, it's not a joke. It's not just something Foggy's going a long with because he can't think of a reason why not.

 

He clears his throat. "Yeah, okay," he says, "Sure. Why not. But if Mom insists on throwing us a party, that's on you."

 

Matt groans pathetically. "I think I'm getting cold feet," he says.

 

"You're eight months too late to get cold feet," Foggy says, rolling his eyes. "Stop hamming it up, no one's going to believe you, and certainly not me."

 

"What if I get a stomach virus," he wonders. "Do you think Anna will let it go if I look sick enough?" He gives Foggy a pathetic look, all big round brown eyes, because he's the actual worst.

 

"Babe," Foggy says sweetly, "If you try to abandon me to my family, I will rat you faster than you can parkour yourself up a back-alley wall. Do not bring this down on me and think you can wiggle your way out of the repercussions!"

 

Matt scowls at him and seizes control of the box of curry, which is just him being a dick because Matt doesn't even like curry. Curry is not friendly to super senses, apparently, and yet there goes Matt, gritting his teeth and forcing it down. What was Foggy thinking, marrying this asshole?

 

Well. Obviously he wasn't

 

\--

 

Matt only breaks one uncle's jaw, and Foggy doesn't exactly laugh about it, but he's far from crying about it either. Really, Uncle Chuck had been asking for it. He hadn't been the only one, if Foggy was being really honest about it, but he must have overstepped some kind of line because he's the one that Matt fixed on and clocked out cold.

 

Matt was already the favorite son, because most of Foggy's immediate family had more or less fallen in love with him the first time Foggy brought him home, but that was the moment that won over his Dad.

 

Ignoring most of the screaming going on - some of it more dismayed than others; notably Foggy's Grandmother was shouting 'Gimmem another, Matty!' - Dad came over and clasped Foggy on the shoulder. "I remember Battlin' Jack," he had said thoughtfully. "Hell of a right hook his kid has there, even if he is blind."

 

"Yeah, being blind doesn't really slow Matt down," Foggy had said, shrugging uncomfortably. "He's got some anger problems. We're working on it."

 

"Let me know if you kids ever need bail money," Dad had said gruffly, and left to crack open a beer. Foggy got some of his worst coping methods from his Dad.

 

It was a long ride back to Hell's Kitchen and an even longer climb up the steps to Matt's apartment. "That wasn't so bad," Matt tells him at the door, but he sounds a little punch-drunk, so Foggy's not sure that's his actual opinion.

 

"Yeah, just wait, that was only stage-one," Foggy mutters. "If Mom catches wind of the wedding video, then you can bet she's going to make us hold a re-do, fast thinking with the cake photos or not."

 

"Yeah, but it sold the 'small intimate gathering' story," Matt points out. "They must have been good. That was what sold it to her, I could tell."

 

"Yeah, well," Foggy says, cringing a little. It really had been the photos that sold it. Before then, Mom and Dad had been sure they were just playing off some kind of prank or joke or - abusing spouse benefits. Which, allegedly, was what they were doing. Consolidating their debts. Preparing for hospital visitations. They just. You know. Tend to look like they're in love in photos. No big deal. Really!

 

"Hey," Matt says while Foggy locks up. He's grasping at his tie, pulling it loose and looking unfairly handsome in the pink light coming in the window. Foggy knows the place like the back of his own hand by now, so he doesn't bother to turn on the light; the billboard is more than enough. "What do they look like? The photos."

 

"Oh," Foggy says, letting out his breath. Aw, shit. "Like a couple of people cutting cake, Matt. With streamers and balloons and flowers in the background. We, of course, make a very handsome couple."

 

Matt huffs, not quite a laugh and not a scoff, either. "Yeah," he says, "I figured. But. What does it." The humor around the edges of his face fades. "What's it really look like?"

 

This is not the discussion that Foggy was looking for. Actually, he was looking for no discussion at all, and just climbing into bed with his spouse and deliberately not thinking about things for a month or two. Matt's got his soft, wistful tone going on there, and on one hand, Foggy still treasures that he gets to hear that, and on the other, it's not a tone of voice he can tell 'no.'

 

Of course, if he was ever capable of telling Matt 'no,' then they probably wouldn't still be married.

 

"A married couple, cutting cake," he clarifies, shrugging and rolling his eyes. "I don't know, Matt. Happy. Uh." He thinks for a second. He'll admit he's got a few of them memorized, no - no big deal. "In at least one of them, you're doing this doofy grin -"

 

"The one that makes me look like an idiot?" Matt asks, weird and somewhere between self-mocking and hopeful.

 

"No. That actually would not have helped. You haven't done that one since we passed the bar, I think, but idiot-glee wouldn't exactly sell wedding photos," Foggy says. He shrugs off his jacket and hangs it on the hook.

 

"Hm. And what do you look like?" Matt asks, following him toward the bedroom, folding and flattening his tie.

 

"Grumpy, but that was because Karen was being a pain in the ass."

 

"You looking grumpy convinced Anna this was the real deal?" Matt says skeptically as he hangs his tie with the others and begins undressing. Sad. It's almost pitch dark in the bedroom, but Foggy is so accustomed to Matt stripping these days that it's lost on him anyway.

 

"Well, no, I didn't show her that one." He fishes his pajamas out of the chest of drawers and slips into them. The tension of the day finally sweeps out of him and he sits down heavily on the edge of the bed, letting out a sigh. Could have been worse, he silently agrees. He just outed himself to his family as being very not heterosexual but also married to his best friend. Of course, Chuck was the one that started in with all the 'not carrying on the family name' nonsense. That had just been the start.

 

And he's also not going to worry about that. It was bad enough living through it the first time, he's going to put off having flashbacks to it for a few days at least. He savors the memory of the moment Matt's jaw had set and his lips had thinned and he'd strolled over to Chuck with a tight little mean smile on his face and hauled off and laid him on his back.

 

"Well, it's not like we can't adopt," Foggy muses with a yawn. "We'll name half of them Nelson and the other half Murdock. Well. If they don't wanna keep their own names, I guess."

 

Matt says, "What."

 

"Nothing," Foggy says, twisting to fall into his side of the bed. He drags the covers up over his legs and shoves the pillow around until he has it situated the way he likes it.

 

"Y - you remember my hearing's pretty good," Matt says, even as he climbs into bed, settling on his side of it. It's all done with grace, and he barely jars it at all.

 

"Yeah, yeah, fight me about it, Murdock," Foggy mumbles.

 

His spouse settles in under the sheets with a polite six inches between them. It's probably not a night anyone is going to be disrespecting each other's boundaries, Foggy thinks. He can hear Matt breathing in the darkness; feel his presence nearby. It might not be everything he's ever wanted, but there's something extremely satisfying about it anyway.

 

"I don't like it when we fight," Matt says into the darkness; soft and painfully earnest. It's like school all over again, Matt with a beer or two in him and slowly learning how to share.

 

That's. Kind of unfortunate. Actually. Because, now as it did then, it makes the roiling, thundering thing in Foggy's chest unfurl. Roll out from the soft parts of him. Growl along his bones. Rattle his teeth. Makes Foggy want to reach out and touch Matt.

 

Stupid wounded duck.

 

"Yeah, I don't like it either," Foggy admits, tucking his hands under his pillow and resting his head on them.

 

After a second, Matt inhales to speak, twisting his face toward Foggy. "What did we look like in the picture you showed your mom?"

 

It was too much to hope for, that Matt might have dropped it. "Real," he says, because how else do you describe something like that? Matt with that stupid crook in his mouth, Foggy with some dumb cow-look because apparently he gets emotional about cutting tiered cakes with his best friend who he's in love with. "Not whatever half-assed joke-marriage we've been doing all along," he clarifies. "Which is why I picked that one. Picture's worth a thousand words. Made us look in-love married instead of best-friend married. Someone buy Karen Page a photographer's license and sign her up to cover my sister's wedding."

 

"Oh," Matt says. Foggy can hear his fingers shifting against the sheets. "Are you going to frame it and put it on your desk? Th-the way I understand it, people usually keep photos on their desk."

 

No, because Foggy prefers to make it through the day without feeling punched in the heart, thanks very much. "Yeah, usually not cake-cutting photos," he says. "Maybe something else, a little less staged. Of course, I can always just look up across the hall and see my spouse, so. Kind of defeats the purpose of pictures, doesn't it?"

 

"Ah. Point taken," Matt says, warm and amused.

 

"Uh huh. And now, I am going to try to get a little sleep, because unlike some people I can think of, I treasure a night of good rest and being alert in the morning. 'Night, babe." Foggy rolls over, just to make his point, because otherwise they're going to get into truly dangerous territory. And he wasn't lying. He was tired as hell after the day they had.

 

"Alright. Good night, muffin," Matt says sweetly, because he's an asshole who totally deserves the pillow to the face that he promptly gets.

 

\--

 

"Here you go, muffin," Matt says, holding out the case files to Foggy with his stupid jackass grin, because of course he's dragging this into the public area.

 

Karen chokes on her coffee, and Foggy snatches the papers from Matt and leans over to rub her back. "Matt," he says, "I will actually file charges against you if you kill Karen. I _like_ Karen, okay. She's our friend, remember this."

 

"Sorry, Karen," he says, falsely-contrite.

 

Karen coughs a bit more, then clears her throat and looks between the two of them. "Well, it suits you," she offers.

 

"Okay, I don't like Karen anymore," Foggy says, pulling his hand away. "I think it's time we put an ad in the paper for a new secretary, _babe_."

 

Matt just looks smug about it, possibly because he's developed an immunity to 'babe'. This could be war. "Karen's fine," he says, then cocks his head. "Right, Karen?"

 

"Oh, no, don't drag me into your strange domestic tiffs, and-or strange courtship rituals," she says, scooting back in her chair and holding both hands up. "This is between the two of you."

 

Only it doesn't stay that way. If it did, or even if it stayed between the three of them, that would be one thing. Matt seems to go out of his way to look for reasons to hand Foggy things or get Foggy to hand him things and he always calls Foggy 'muffin' and it. What. It's. Foggy is. Really. What.

 

It culminates to the day that Foggy and Matt are at the station, thankfully dealing with Brett and not one of the other cops, and Brett passes Matt a folder full of pictures. If it were anyone else other than Brett, Foggy would be annoyed, and possibly Matt as well, but that's not how it is. Brett knows better than to reach across Matt, that's all.

 

Foggy pulls out the pictures, which are admittedly incriminating, and leans over a bit to describe them to Matt. Matt nods thoughtfully, says, "thanks, muffin," and Foggy says, "sure thing, babe," and Brett says, "oh fuck me."

 

It takes Foggy a few seconds to figure out why Brett's looking at them with a slightly horrified expression, because he'd been fine up until - what. Ugh. Foggy's slightly annoyed that Matt has actually accustomed him to the 'muffin' endearment. Enough that he actually answers in kind. Just. Ugh.

 

"Did you two really get married," Brett demands, looking slightly outraged. "Your momma told my Gran you did, but I never thought you'd actually have the guts - I _hate_ you, Nelson. Absolutely hate you."

 

"Why," Foggy asks, a little offended now. "Because I followed my dreams and married the person I adore more than anything?"

 

Brett rolls his eyes. "Yeah, spare me your sickening cutesy bullshit," he says. "I had half the department swearing up and down that you idiots were married, but I actually had faith in you! Faith, Nelson! And this is how you repay me. They actually showed me your marriage license. But I didn't believe it."

 

"I," Foggy says, really confused now. He glances at Matt, but Matt looks equally baffled. "I'm - sorry?"

 

"Yeah, you better be," Brett says. "I can't believe you've been married for almost a year and never told me. Now I owe you a wedding gift? This is bullshit."

 

"Oh shit, Matt," he says, turning. "We missed out. We missed out on the wedding registry! We could have gotten so much free stuff."

 

With a groan and a look of vague embarrassment, Matt fumbles a hand up over Foggy's face and says, "Ignore my husband, Brett. No gifts are necessary, I promise. It was all very. Spur of the moment."

 

"Yeah, like my Gran's gonna take that sitting down," he says with a huff. "Take your evidence and get out of my face."

 

Matt is careful to give Brett his most charming grin before sliding his hand down to take hold of Foggy's elbow. Foggy graces Brett with his own smile before he lets Matt tug him out of the station.

 

"I can't believe I didn't even think about that before now," Foggy says. "We did this all backwards. There could have been wedding gifts, Matt. Wedding gifts! Free things! Maybe an expense-paid honeymoon?"

 

It doesn't impress Matt much. "Foggy, I barely wanted to leave long enough to take a weekend down to Vegas," he points out. "And that was only so that we could get a first hand account for our client at the time. And look how that worked out."

 

"Could have been worse," he points out. "Karen has implied that she's pretty sure she talked us into getting married because that one bartender was giving you the eye. You could have woken up to someone much less pretty than me."

 

"No, I'm - I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have happened," Matt says wryly.

 

Yeah, but what does he know? He married Foggy, after all.

 

\--

 

Sharing a bathroom with Matt is. Kind of. Okay, it's not any weirder these days than sharing a bed with Matt is. They actually practiced this part, is the thing; back when they roomed together. Well, that was a little bit before Matt started his vigilante thing, so. It's a bit different. Matt was never a morning person, but he's even less of one when he loses sleep.

 

After a night of Daredeviling, Foggy first has to convince Matt to let him get out of bed, and then himself, and then Matt again. Matt clings when he comes home from Daredeviling, in a way that hurts Foggy's heart but could also cause some very embarrassing situations if he's not careful. And also Foggy is about ninety-percent more inclined to stay in bed when it's warm like that and he's being cuddle-strangled. And if he lingers, then Matt has a tendency to latch back on. So yeah.

 

But even on those mornings, Foggy tends to get out of bed first, and get through his shower, and dressed, before Matt even hauls himself out of bed. So Foggy's dealing with his wet hair when Matt shuffles in to brush his teeth, because hey. Despite what people think, long hair? Requires attention. There are actual products that go into keeping it out of his eyes most days.

 

Matt's clearly just barely on his feet, leaning his hip heavily against the counter while he brushes his teeth, eyes scrunched shut and pillow creases on his face. At this rate, Karen's going to meet sleepy Matt and be disillusioned forever.

 

"Hey, rise and shine, pumpkin pie," Foggy says. "Time to put the frog face away and pretend to be a prince again."

 

Grumbling a protest, Matt spits out the toothpaste and rinses off his brush. That done, his head swings in Foggy's direction, and then he peels away from the counter and sways in Foggy's direction.

 

Largely the only reason that Foggy doesn't duck or dodge is because it looks like Matt will fall on his face if he doesn't hit Foggy. His hard head impacts Foggy's shoulder, which Foggy protests with a mildly annoyed "Ow" and "Don't get toothpaste on my shirt, jackass."

 

Matt harrumphs and leans into him, and welp. There goes Foggy's heart. Yeah. Thanks, Matt. He doesn't exactly ever forget that he's in love with Matt, but Matt likes to remind him on occasion or something.

 

"Alright, babe, time to wake up," he says, ruffling Matt's hair. "Or at least get into the shower. God knows how you make it without coffee. On a prayer, is my guess."

 

"I don't pray to wake up, Foggy," Matt mumbles into his arm, sounding as indignant as anyone can when they aren't fully awake.

 

"Somehow wouldn't surprise me if you did," he says. "You know, I am aware how comfortable I am, but I actually intend to go in today to the office and get actual work done."

 

The word 'work' seems to do some kind of magic. Matt stirs and peels himself off Foggy, and he reaches up and holds Foggy still and presses a sticky kiss to his cheek before he turns away and starts stripping. Because of course he does, instead of waiting for Foggy to check out the way it usually happens.

 

Foggy gets the hell out of Dodge before Matt gets his pants off, because that's slightly more important than washing toothpaste residue off his cheek.

 

\--

 

"Look," Foggy says, "I'm just saying, it would make a lot of sense as a crime of passion."

 

Matt kind of bares his teeth at him, because that's what Matt does when he gets frustrated. "No. Even ignoring the fact that I already know she's telling the truth, there's no way Ms. Williams did it. Especially as a crime of passion."

 

"Yeah, super senses are not admissible in a court of law," Foggy reminds him. "Come on. She comes home, finds her boyfriend with another girl - bam. Socks him with meat hammer and puts him in a coma."

 

"Except that's not what happened," Matt says. "I'll give you that Ms. Moore thinks she did it, but she's telling the truth. Besides, she loves Martines, she's not going to - to sock him with a meat hammer."

 

Foggy groans loudly. "Oh, she loves him," he says dryly. "Just because she loves him does not make her incapable of putting the guy in the coma. I actually think that increases the chances that she's guilty. And how do you know that, anyway? Her heart told you so?"

 

"It's not the heartbeat," Matt says with an exasperated tilt of his head. "The heartbeat's part of it, but there's a whole lot more to it than that. Trust me, I know when someone is in love, and she's in love with him. She wouldn't hurt him."

 

And Foggy's a total pushover when it comes to Matt asking Foggy to trust him, despite their history, so he folds like a bad hand even though he's not happy about it. Matt should never have to ask for Foggy's trust - wouldn't have to, if he had just trusted Foggy in the first place.

 

It's a few days later before Foggy suddenly snags over what Matt said. He comes out of his office, offers Karen a smile and says, "Hey, Karen, why don't you take a coffee break?" She stares at him for a stunned second, but then must see something on his face because her eyebrows fly up.

 

"Oh, um. Okay," she says uncertainly, getting to her feet and snatching at her purse. In his office, Matt has lifted his head and there's a frown on his face. "I'll just - you'll text me when you need me?"

 

"Sure, sounds perfect," he says calmly. "We'll give you a call."

 

Karen cuts a quick look at the two of them before clearly deciding it's none of her business and clearing out. Once the door has closed behind her, Foggy strolls over to Matt's office. Matt's fingers are splayed over his display, not even pretending to read it at the moment.

 

Foggy slouches against the doorway and says, "There's a whole lot more to being able to tell when someone is in love. Hmm." He looks thoughtfully toward the ceiling, even though that's probably lost on Matt. He's not sure why he's trying to pick a fight over this. It's stupid. He already knows that Matt _has_ to know. The fuck is he doing.

 

Matt pulls his ear phone out and settles back into his chair, in a kind of lazy slouch. Which is bad. Any time Matt looks relaxed, he's really just readying himself for anything. "Yes," he agrees cautiously.

 

"Don't be a dick," Foggy says.

 

"Ah, I - I didn't think I was?" Matt seems honestly confused by this little confrontation.

 

Foggy sighs loudly, but - honestly. Matt has a point. Matt is actually not being a dick about this? Because. Obviously. Obviously Matt knows. Foggy doesn't have secrets. He'd like to have secrets, but he sucks at keeping them and is overly attached to an asshole who doesn't permit the existence of them on the basis of the fact that he can just. Tell. Matt is a living, breathing breach of privacy. And Foggy loves him. So. Foggy. Foggy did this to himself.

 

"Yeah, okay, fine, you're not," he agrees, aggrieved. "But could you - you know. Not. Be as - flippant. About it. As you are? Ah ha! 'Flippant.' See what I did there?"

 

Matt has been scowling since 'but', and now he pulls his lip back from his teeth in an unfriendly kind of snarl about Foggy's puns. Foggy is trying to deflect here and give himself some dignity, and it seems to be pissing Matt off, because this is Foggy's life now. "Flippant about what," he says flatly.

 

"The fact that I'm in love with you, asshole!" Foggy says, sharp and clean, like ripping a band-aid off, or owning up to breaking a window with his ball when he was a kid. "It's like the worst kept secret in all of Manhattan, don't even pretend you didn't know. What the hell is with this face? This is not news to you."

 

'This face' is the one that Matt is currently wearing, and it's pretty dumb looking. Like, literal 'dumb' - 'dumbstruck', like Matt's taken by surprise or something that Foggy's actually said something about it. Yeah, dumbstruck is the perfect way to describe it, since Matt is also saying a whole lot of nothing, not even his usual bit of stuttering that he does when Foggy yells at him.

 

It's pissing Foggy off a bit. "I actually agreed to marry you, Matt - drunk, yes, but it happened. And I actually agreed to _stay_ married to you, what the hell did you think was the reasoning behind that," he says, exasperated. "God, for someone so smart, you can be a little - slow. On the interpersonal front."

 

"No, I - uh," Matt says uselessly, licking his lips.

 

Worst. Spouse. Ever. Foggy sends a pleading look upstairs, for patience. If this was God's plan all along, then He really owes Foggy some back-pay. And hazard pay. There'd better be one hell of a reward waiting for Foggy at the Pearly Gates, is what he's saying. "It was gonna get said sooner or later, Matt," he points out. "I get tired of pretending something is a secret when it's really not. So please. _Please_ be a little bit more mindful with all the 'muffin' bullshit, and the - the kissing? Okay?"

 

"I," Matt says, and his mouth works a bit, "Do you not - want me to?"

 

"No!" Foggy says, but that's a lie, so he immediately corrects to "Yes" and then clarifies: "If you _meant_ it! It's not rocket science. A little screwing around is fine, obviously, but just." He doesn't know how to finish that sentence. Telling Matt not to be a jerk is a bit useless. He's not sure Matt knows what is acceptable behavior and what's just being an asshole.

 

Matt finds his feet, finally, which is to say that he goes on the offensive, clutching the arms of his chair and saying, "Objection - that's a completely improper argument. You're assuming facts not in evidence and expressing personal belief and opinion."

 

_Really?_ "Overruled," Foggy says flatly, glaring. "My argument is entirely proper, considering there's not a whole lot in evidence right now. I am actually doing you the favor of presuming you innocent in face of evidence that supports a much more alarming conclusion."

 

Matt's not going to take that sitting down; with a huff, he climbs to his feet and cocks his head. "Well, you're certainly not doing me the favor of presuming me innocent of lying to you about this."

 

"But I am doing you the favor of not presuming you a big enough asshole as to know that I'm in love with you and leading me on," Foggy points out with a nasty little smile, sharp and mean.

 

Matt meets him with Daredevil's grin, more snarl than smile, and his bark of laughter is hard enough to cut glass. "Who said anything about leading you on," he asks.

 

A fatal misstep, there, Foggy thinks; this is Matt rushing heedlessly ahead, face first into danger without considering the battleground at hand. "Oh, really," he says. "Let's look at the facts. One: you knew I was attracted to you from the day we met." Matt scoffs but doesn't deny it, turning to pace behind his desk the way he does when faced with a difficult case. "Two," Foggy continues mercilessly, "Don't even try lying to me that you didn't know I've been in love with you for years."

 

"Infatuation," Matt corrects sharply. "And me and a dozen other people."

 

Mostly true, and not worth arguing the details. "Three: thank God you gave me the dignity of not making things awkward between us. Four: we got married, and then, five: when I wanted an annulment, you wouldn't give me one."

 

Matt drags his hand over his face and comes to a stop.

 

"And six," Foggy says, "you let me call you 'babe,' and buy us rings, and you - kissed me, and call me pet names, all while you knew exactly how I felt. If that's not leading me on, then I don't know what is."

 

"No," Matt says, shaking his head. "No. That was not - that wasn't what I was doing." He doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands and his jaw is tensed, but not clenched.

 

Foggy takes a deep breath. Neither of them want a fight, and that's not. That's not what Foggy came here to do. "Okay," he says. "But I'm letting you know now: it would be really great if you'd be. Just a little less." A little less everything, but. How do you even ask for that? "Just. Less," he says.

 

"No, I - I can't do that," Matt says. His hands are restless, and he finally sets them on his hips and puts his chin up in the air. "I can't do that. I can't agree to that."

 

Foggy puts his hands on his face, drags them down and breathes into them. He can't believe what he's hearing. "Can't or won't," he says, though he thinks he should really be asking: _why?_

 

"Can't. Won't. Both," Matt snaps. "We are _married._ "

 

"Yes, I know, that's part of the problem -"

 

"It's not a problem," he says, sharp and angry. "Foggy, I _married_ you. I - that - do you have any idea -" Matt's hands are spasming, and he stops, and takes a deep breath, and holds it for a second.

 

Ah, shit, that's his 'closing statement' stance. Foggy doesn't cross his arms, because of course he's not feeling defensive. He has no reason to feel defensive. Everything he's said and asked for have been reasonable, rational things to want and ask.

 

Matt lifts one hand, fingers curled. "When you moved in with me," he says, slow and measured, "You said something about making Claire feel better, sending me home to someone. But Claire wasn't the one coming home to someone, to a - an apartment that wasn't empty. To - to someone who loves them. You're right. You're absolutely right. I knew. I knew this entire time how you felt about me. Your body isn't exactly subtle about it. Your heart beats faster and your voice - and your skin warms up. There are things I can't see or I don't understand, but you're not one of them, Foggy. And you -" Matt pauses. He licks his lips, and he says, "You can't tell. But I. I am not exactly unmoved."

 

"Oh," Foggy says flatly, because he's allowed to be an asshole. Matt does not have complete claim over all asshole things. "You're not unmoved. What the hell does that mean, Murdock?"

 

"It means -" He says, and swallows, and softer, "It means I like what we have. What we've created. What - what you've made for me. Everything."

 

And there's the wounded duck look, in pure weaponized form. Like Foggy was ever able to tell Matt 'no'. "I'm not going to take that away, Matt," he says, and he's exhausted, and he sounds it. "I am actually not going anywhere. I'm not going to leave, okay? I - I actually came out to my family, thanks to this, so it's. Not something I'm going back on. I'm just asking for you to - to make it a little less difficult for me. Okay?"

 

Matt purses his mouth, like he's not hearing what he whats, which is weird. He should be able to tell that Foggy's telling the truth. "That's not," he says, and stops, and then he comes to some kind of decision, and he steps around his chair and the desk.

 

Foggy doesn't flinch, which is - because Matt grabs him by the face and kisses him. And Foggy's pretty fluent in kisses, and this is - it's just making a point, which won't actually win Matt any arguments with Foggy. He fumbles at Matt's arm, thinking to set him back; Foggy has too large of a family not to know that nothing comes out of making points just to make points.

 

The second kiss stalls Foggy out where he stands, wetter and softer and somehow sharper. One of Matt's hands drop to grasp and pull at Foggy's collar, pulling him closer - but Matt gives as much as Foggy does, learning into it, leaning into _him_. He's warm and pliant, and the third kiss pries Foggy open and steals his breath and leaves something hot and heady and biting in its place, like expensive liquor or the embers from a house fire or an entire city block ablaze.

 

Matt drinks him in like an oasis, and breathes fast and unsteady against his mouth like he's fanning flames. His ribs flex like bellows beneath Foggy's fingers, powerful and diligent, and he presses his forehead to Foggy's and says, earnestly: "I want to spend the rest of my life waking up next to you."

 

The embers catch and burn a hole into Foggy's heart, of the perfect size and shape for a Devil. On a distant city block, a neon sign crackles to life, and sizzles and hisses in mockery.

 

Foggy would thump Matt on the nose if he could pry his hands loose and work one between the lack of space between them. "Really?" he says, and it tastes like smoke. "Now you're going to use lines on me?"

 

"I might," Matt says, "It sounds like it's working?"

 

Lord save him from Matt Murdock. Foggy assuages himself with the thought there are worst punishments, and worst devils, and there's no point in crying over an unanswered prayer if the fate of that is anything like this. If he's very lucky, maybe the Lord won't save him for a long, long time.

 

\--

 

Of course, their wedding video does get leaked, and Mom is predictably appalled. Foggy has some thoughts on just who is responsible, except that Karen and Matt look equally shifty when he brings it up. It doesn't take long at all before she's calling him and demanding a do-over, which was exactly what he's been trying to avoid.

 

Eventually, Matt bites his lip and says, "I think we should."

 

"Matt, we are already married in the eyes of the Lord," Foggy says flatly, because this was the whole argument that Matt used against an annulment in the first place.

 

"Yes, but we're not really getting married again," Matt says, "It'll just be a ceremony, but if you're planning to adopt children at some point in the vague, distant future, then maybe a Las Vegas wedding isn't what we want to show them."

 

"Goddamn it," Foggy says, because Matt has a point and of course he'd heard what Foggy had been muttering about that night. This could possibly also answer why Matt always looks so damned shifty. "Okay, but we're not inviting Chuck until you really feel the need for a punching bag on our - vow-renewal day, or whatever."

 

"We could conveniently lose his invitation in the mail," Matt says hopefully.

 

Matt and Foggy may or may not actually lie about the date of the ceremony on about ninety-percent of the invitations, a benefit of not letting Foggy's parents control the celebration at all. Foggy's parents have a very different idea of what kind of ceremony would be appropriate than Matt does. Foggy himself has no opinion, so long as none of Matt's super-powered buddies get invited or crash the whole thing. Or badguys. They owe Foggy especially not to come ruin this day, because Foggy has put up with a lot of shit from Matt's badguys.

  


It's kind of funny for them to spend just the one day wearing their old brass rings again, but there's less reason to buy a third set of rings, and it's not like they can afford it anyway. They do get the tungsten ones professionally cleaned, and Karen carries both until the time comes for her to hand them off.

  


Of course, Foggy's met Matt's priest, and he already knows the guy is pretty relaxed - concerned for Matt and Matt's moral code, but otherwise cool. The guy agreed to officiate their mock-wedding, after all. It's just that this is the first time that he's met Father Lantom without Matt in tow to inhibit the conversation. And there are a few things that. Well, you know.

  


"Alright, but honestly: are you even allowed to marry people?" Foggy asks suspiciously, to which Father Lantom gives a shifty shrug and raises his eyebrow.

  


"Does it matter?" he asks wryly. "You're already good as married, and the way I hear it, the two of you have been working up to this for years now."

  


"Oh good," Foggy says vaguely, because apparently Matt is a terrible gossip. There's literally no reason for Matt to be confessing anything about Foggy, and especially not about how he has been making marriage vows in Matt's general direction for years and just hoping Matt wouldn't notice.

  


He might get Father Lantom drunk on champagne in revenge. Father Lantom actually holds his alcohol surprisingly well, at least until Foggy's Aunt Marjorie starts with her usual venomous rhetoric, this time with a twist of 'is he really blind', at which point Father Lantom may or may not start flicking water in her face, saying 'the power of Christ compels you.' Marjorie may or may not actually leave at that point, which - that's fine with Foggy, although he's not entirely sure he would notice the difference, because -

  


Because, well - Foggy might be a little sketchy on any details that aren't Matt in a lovely white suit, accented in red, and his ridiculous, small and surprisingly tasteful bouquet of roses and baby's breath and ferns - ("I can have a bouquet if I want a bouquet, Karen" and "Don't even try saying 'no' to that face, Karen" which wasn't Matt's sad face, for once, but his stubborn one, which is even more useless arguing against).

  


It's not a proper ceremony, but it's not a proper wedding, and their priest has attempted to perform an exorcism on a member of Foggy's family. A weaker man might have declared it a disaster, but - good enough, Foggy thinks. It wouldn't be Hell's Kitchen if things went as expected. And they wouldn't be Matt Murdock and Foggy Nelson.

  


"You may now kiss your husband," Father Lantom tells Matt, before mindfully turning and telling Foggy, "Your spouse." Then, as he straightens, he drolly says, "Not that you haven't been anyway, but at least you've both pretended to have a modicum of decency today, and for that I commend you."

  


Matt's priest is completely unbelievable, Foggy thinks, and then he thinks a lot less because Matt kisses him like he means it.

  


Dad stands up and claps loudly, which is kind of him, even though Foggy's pretty sure Mom is pointing out to his sisters what _not_ to do when their turn to get married comes around. Pictures are taken, music is played, and Foggy's pretty sure his  grandmother has cornered Father Lantom at the buffet table and is hitting on him, but then Matt wants a dance and that's slightly less important. 

  


"Matt, I swear if your priest ends up marrying into my family, we're going to have to pack up and leave New York. This is not good on my heart," Foggy complains. 

  


Matt hums  with an indulgent smile . "Of course we will," he says,  which is an obvious and dirty lie, but .  Fine. He can probably tell Foggy doesn't mean it.  New York City is as much Foggy's home as it is his. 

  


And hey. The universe doesn't end and no aliens attack, so it's a successful wedding in the end. There are no happily-ever-afters, not in marrying a superhero, but there's a happy today, and that's good enough.

  


**Author's Note:**

> To successfully understand Matt's pov on this story, just listen to Candi Staton's [He Called Me Baby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txOo9T1jn5Y). 
> 
> roses are an obvious symbol of love, ferns mean sincerity and secret bonds of love, and baby's breath in this instance is meant to stand for everlasting love. it's not an unusual combination. I could have gone with ivy instead of ferns, which may have been appropriate given this is Matt we're talking about, but ferns are softer and have an earthy scent and grow in secret, quiet places, while ivy stifles and overwhelms. If this had been Pining!Matt and not Falling-in-love!Matt, I would have gone with ivy, because I like dropping hints of unsettling behavior ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Brass and brass alloys are not hypoallergenic. Logically, at least one of them (probably Matt) would have had an allergic reaction to them, but that's just needless angst. 
> 
> Foggy says supersuit and Matt immediately thinks [the scene from The Incredibles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2qRDMHbXaM), because if you think Foggy didn't immediately make Matt watch every superhero movie in existence post-Reveal as a 'study guide', you are wrong.


End file.
